I      , 


•t  ,  I 
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COJ 


£rom  the  "Books  of 
CDary  J.  L.  CDcConald 


IN 


Mary   J.   L.   Me  Donald 


'  gftttion 


LIFE  AND    LETTERS    OF 
OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

BY  JOHN  T.  MORSE,  JR. 
ILL  USTRA  TED  WITH  PHO  TO GRA  VURES 

IN  TWO  VOLUMES 
VOLUME   II 


LIFE  AND  LETTERS  OF 


OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 


IN  TWO  VOLUMES 
VOLUME    II 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND   COMPANY 


anb  JFt 
f&rintrti.    Dumber 


COPYRIGHT,  1896 
BY  JOHN  T.  MORSE,  JR. 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  XIII 

OCCUPATIONS:  METHODS  OF  WORK 1 

CHAPTER  XIV 

RESIGNS  PROFESSORSHIP  :  LIVES  OF  MOTLEY  AND  EMERSON  42 

CHAPTER  XV 

EUROPEAN  TRIP  :  OLD  AGE 65 

CHAPTER  XVI 

DEATH 92 

LETTERS  : 

I.  To  James  Russell  Lowell 107 

II.   To  James  William  Kimball 139 

III.  To  John  Lothrop  Motley 153 

IV.  To  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe 223 

V.    To  Elizabeth  Stuart  Phelps  Ward     ....  256 

VI.  Miscellaneous  Letters 269 

INDEX  321 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

VOLUME  II 

PAGE 

OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES.    From  a  photograph  by  Notman 

Photo.  Co.,  1892 Frontispiece 

DR.  HOLMES'S  FAREWELL  ADDRESS.    Harvard  Medical  School, 

November  28,  1882 48 

FACSIMILE  OF  AN  AUTOGRAPH  COPT  OF  THE  LAST  LEAF     .      98 
JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL.    From  a  photograph  by  Notman 

Photo.  Co.,  1889 126 

DR.  HOLMES'S  MOTHER,  SARAH  WENDELL  HOLMES.    From  a 

photograph  taken  in  the  "  Gambrel-Roofed  House  "  .  .  164 
ELIZABETH  STUART  PHELPS  WARD.  From  a  photograph  .  256 
A  MORNING  WALK.  Snap-shot  at  "  The  Autocrat,"  November, 

1893,  as  he  was  leaving  his  Boston  home,  296  Beacon  Street  .  266 
JOHN  O.  SARGENT.  From  a  photograph  by  Sarony  .  .  .  312 


MEMOIRS  AND   CORRESPONDENCE 

CHAPTER  XIII 
OCCUPATIONS  :   METHODS   OF  WORK 

DR.  HOLMES  was  a  man  of  many  tastes,  which 
pressed  close  upon  each  other  through  his  life  in  a  pro 
cession  broken  by  no  intervals  of  tedium.  He  had  the 
mechanical  ingenuity  which  is,  or  used  to  be,  the  pro 
verbial  gift  of  the  Yankee.  He  was  always  "tinker 
ing  "  at  one  contrivance  or  another.  When  the  first 
enthusiasm  about  the  microscope  had  passed,  the  train 
of  thought  awakened  thereby  led  him  to  make  a  clever 
invention,  —  the  small  stereoscope  for  hand  use.  I 
recollect  the  first  one  of  these  clever  adaptations, 
made  —  all  save  the  lenses,  of  course  —  by  his  own 
hands,  and  to  which  only  small  improvements  in  the 
way  of  finish  were  afterward  added.  If  he  had  taken 
out  a  patent  for  this  he  would  have  made  a  large  sum_ 
of  money,  would  perhaps  have  become,  for  those  times 
in  Boston,  a  rich  man.  Why  he  did  not  do  so  I  cannot 
say,  —  whether  it  was  from  a  bit  of  that  sentiment 
which  has  so  often  led  physicians  to  refrain  from  bur 
dening  their  inventions  with  the  added  cost  of  a  royalty, 
or  whether  he  did  not  give  much  consideration  to  the 
mercantile  value  of  what  he  had  done.  I  can  say, 
however,  that  I  often  heard  him  speak  of  the  sums 
which  he  had  thus  "  lost,"  and  never  heard  him  express 
any  regret  that  his  invention  had  not  been  laid  beneath 
this  fine  for  his  benefit. 


2  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

Here  too  is  an  intimation  of  Dr.  Holmes's  skill  in 
another  handicraft.  I  venture  to  publish  the  note, 
since  Mr.  Sumner  is  dead  without  progeny ;  if  it  is  a 
little  caustic,  it  is  also  amusing  in  its  presentation  of 
a  quite  familiar  trait  of  the  egotistical  statesman :  — 

TO   GEORGE   ABBOT   JAMES. 

296  BEACON  STREET,  April  22,  1886. 

DEAR  MR.  JAMES,  —  If  I  do  not  put  down  a 
few  words  on  paper  now,  I  shall  be  apt  to  forget  to 
do  it  in  the  various  distracting  preparations  for  the 
voyage. 

I  remember  the  dinner  you  refer  to,  well.  I  recall 
more  especially  Mr.  Sumner's  learned  discourse  on 
book-binding. 

How  formidable  a  little  cheap  knowledge  looks  to 
those  who  are  wholly  ignorant  of  its  familiar  terms ! 
I  recollect  that  the  word  "  forwarding  "  made  almost 
a  sensation,  as  Sumner  spoke  of  it.  What  is  "for 
warding"?  It  includes  all  that  part  of  a  book 
binder's  work  which  is  necessary  for  the  preservation 
of  a  volume. 

All  the  rest  is  "  finishing,"  —  coloring  the  leather, 
gilding,  and  ornamentation  of  every  kind. 

I  think  we  were  all  interested  in  Sumner's  dinner- 
table  lecture,  —  I  am  sure  he  enjoyed  giving  it  as 
much  as  any  old  Professor  discoursing  to  a  class  of 
students. 

When  you  hear  a  distinguished  personage  using 
long  words  or  technical  phrases  that  frighten  you  and 
make  you  think  how  learned  he  is  and  how  desperately 
ignorant  you  and  all  your  acquaintances  are,  as  soon 
as  the  speech  is  over,  and  the  company  separates,  go 
to  your  dictionary  or  cyclopaedia  and  look  out  his 


OCCUPATIONS:  METHODS  or  WORK     3 

polysyllables,  and  ten  to  one  you  will  get  him  off  his 
high  horse  in  five  minutes. 

If  he  quotes  a  Latin  sentence,  see  if  Bonn's  Hand 
book  has  n't  got  it.  If  a  line  from  any  English  poet 
or  prose  -  writer,  look  in  your  Bartlett's  Familiar 
Quotations.  This  will  probably  fetch  him. 

I  bound  a  book  myself  once.  I  don't  believe 
Sumner  ever  did.  —  But  I  liked  his  talk  about  it,  and 
hunted  up  the  sources  of  his  knowledge. 

At  one  time  the  Doctor  was  seized  with  an  ardent 
desire  to  learn  to  play  upon  the  violin.  I  think  there 
was  not  the  slightest  reason  to  suppose  that  he  ever 
could  learn,  and  certainly  he  never  did ;  but  he  used 
to  shut  himself  up  in  his  little  "  study,"  beside  the 
front  door  in  the  Charles  Street  house,  and  fiddle 
away  with  surprising  industry,  and  a  satisfaction  out 
of  all  proportion  to  his  achievement.  After  two  or 
three  winters  he  reached  a  point  at  which  he  could 
make  several  simple  tunes  quite  recognizable,  and 
then  finally  desisted  from  what  would  have  been  a 
waste  of  time  had  it  not  been  a  recreation. 

Photography  he  took  up  in  the  old  days  of  "  wet 
process,"  when  it  was  by  no  means  the  easy  and  fash 
ionable  amusement  which  modern  inventions  have 
made  of  it.  He  arrived  at  a  great  degree  of  skill, 
and  found  amusement  in  it  for  many  years. 

He  had  a  lifelong  enthusiasm  for  great  trees.  In 
his  youth,  travelling  about  the  country  on  his  lecturing 
tours,  he  always  had  a  measuring  tape  in  his  pocket, 
and  used  to  stretch  it  around  the  girth  of  any  espe 
cially  big  fellow  with  as  much  interest  as  fashionable 
young  ladies  show  in  taking  the  circumference  of  each 
other's  waists.  His  memory  was  loaded  with  statis- 


4  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

tics,  and  even  when  he  was  in  England,  he  still  could 
pull  out  a  bit  of  string  to  see  whether  or  not  the 
giants  of  Old  England  surpassed  those  of  New  Eng 
land.  It  was  amusing,  he  once  said,  to  "see  how 
meek  one  of  the  great  swaggering  elms  would  look, 
when  it  saw  the  fatal  measure  begin  to  unreel  itself." 
An  especial  one  of  these  cis-Atlantic  monsters  he 
remembered  well,  "  as  we  measured  the  string  which 
was  to  tell  the  size  of  its  English  rival.  As  we  came 
near  the  end  of  the  string,  I  felt  as  I  did  when  I  was 
looking  at  the  last  dash  of  Ormonde  and  The  Bard 
at  Epsom.  Twenty  feet,  and  a  long  piece  of  string 
left ! — Twenty-one.  —  Twenty-two.  —  Twenty-three.  — 
An  extra  heart-beat  or  two.  —  Twenty-four !  —  Twenty- 
five,  and  six  inches  over ! !  " 

In  1885,  when  he  was  living  at  Beverly  Farms,  he 
used  to  walk  over  to  see  "  the  finest  oak  he  could  re 
member."  "  I  never  pass  it,"  he  said,  "  without  a 
bow  and  a  genuflexion."  It  stood  upon  some  land 
belonging  to  me,  and  I  often  found  him  looking  at 
it  with  an  expression  of  eager  admiration.  He  said 
to  me  once :  "  Ah,  J.,  you  think  that  you  own  that 
tree ;  but  you  don't,  it  owns  you  I  " 

In  time  he  came  to  be  recognized  as  such  an  author 
ity  as  to  big  trees  that  he  was  even  consulted  by  Pro 
fessor  Asa  Gray,  the  famous  botanist  of  Harvard 
University,  and  he  made  this  reply  :  — 

TO   MRS.   ASA   GRAY. 

January  24,  1871. 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  GRAY,  —  I  am  a  little  overwhelmed 
with  my  new  reputation  as  a  gardener  ;  yet  as  I  have 
succeeded  in  raising  as  many  cauliflowers  and  cab 
bages  that  did  not  head,  as  many  rat-tail  carrots  and 


OCCUPATIONS:    METHODS   OF  WORK  5 

ramVhorn  radishes,  in  our  Cambridge  sand-patch, 
which  we  called  a  garden,  as  any  other  horticulturist 
could  show  grown  from  the  same  surface  of  ground,  I 
have  some  claim  to  the  title. 

To  answer  Mr.  Robinson's  question :  I  never  saw 
more  than  two  or  three  good  photographs  of  Ameri 
can  elms.  The  best  is  a  large  one  of  the  "  Johnston 
Elm,"  about  three  miles  from  Providence,  one  of  the 
finest  trees,  as  it  was  when  I  used  to  visit  it,  in  New 
England.  This  was  sent  me,  framed,  by  my  nephew 
Dr.  Parsons,  of  Providence,  who  may  be  in  possession 
of  the  negative.  It  might  of  course  be  reduced, 
though  it  would  not  quite  come  up  to  the  first  direct 
photograph.  I  have  stereographs  of  the  Boston  Elm, 
before  its  present  condition  of  decadence,  and  one  of 
the  Washington  Elm,  the  last  a  fair  specimen  of  the 
tree,  but  neither  of  them  equal  to  the  great  Johnston 
Elm.  On  the  whole,  I  think  it  would  be  hard  to  get 
anything  more  satisfactory  and  easily  obtained  than  a 
copy  of  my  photograph  of  this  great  tree,  which  will 
be  at  his  or  your  husband's  service  at  any  time,  if  a 
copy  is  desired.  The  original  is  a  picture  of  perhaps 
eight  or  ten  inches  square. 

The  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast-Table  says:  "I 
have  brought  down  this  slice  of  hemlock  to  show  you. 
Tree  blew  down  in  my  woods  (that  were)  in  1852. 
Twelve  feet  and  a  half  round,  fair  girth ;  nine  feet, 
where  I  got  my  section,  higher  up.  This  is  a  wedge, 
going  to  the  centre,  of  the  general  shape  of  a  slice  of 
apple-pie  in  a  large  and  not  opulent  family.  Length, 
about  eighteen  inches.  I  have  studied  the  growth  of 
this  tree  by  its  rings,  and  it  is  curious.  Three  hun 
dred  and  forty-two  rings.  Started,  therefore,  about 


6  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

1510.  The  thickness  of  the  rings  tells  the  rate  at 
which  it  grew.  .  .  .  Look  here.  Here  are  some  hu 
man  lives  laid  down  against  the  periods  of  its  growth, 
to  which  they  corresponded.  This  is  Shakespeare's. 
The  tree  was  seven  inches  in  diameter  when  he  was 
born  ;  ten  inches  when  he  died.  A  little  less  than  ten 
inches  when  Milton  was  born  ;  seventeen  when  he 
died.  Then  comes  a  long  interval,  and  this  thread 
marks  out  Johnson's  life,  during  which  the  tree  in 
creased  from  twenty-two  to  twenty-nine  inches  in  diam 
eter.  Here  is  the  span  of  Napoleon's  career,  —  the 
tree  does  n't  seem  to  have  minded  it." 

This  was  a  bit  of  autobiography.  He  had  such  a 
tree-section,  and  devoted  much  minute  toil  to  sticking 
into  the  rings  on  its  big  tabular  surface  a  countless 
forest  of  little  pins,  each  one  tagged  with  the  date  of 
some  event  which  was  occurring  when  that  ring  of  the 
tree  was  forming. 

"  I  like  books,  —  I  was  born  and  bred  among  them, 
and  have  the  easy  feeling,  when  I  get  into  their  pres 
ence,  that  a  stable-boy  has  among  horses.  I  don't 
think  I  undervalue  them,  either  as  companions  or 
instructors."  Thus  said  the  Doctor,  speaking  through 
the  mask  of  the  Autocrat.  In  fact,  he  was  a  biblio 
phile,  but  was  not  a  bibliomaniac.  He  was  an  expert 
in  judging  the  physical  qualities  of  a  book  ;  he  loved 
the  clear  old  type  of  some  of  the  earlier  printers,  and 
the  strong  wood-cuts  made  by  a  past  generation.  But 
mere  rarity,  or  a  purely  artificial  first-edition  valuation, 
meant  very  little  to  him.  If  any  admirer  of  his  wants 
a  good  picture,  by  description,  of  his  library,  it  can  be 
found  at  the  beginning  of  the  Professor's  second 
paper. 


OCCUPATIONS  :    METHODS   OF  WORK  7 

Cicero  and  Bacon  have  uttered  two  notable  pas 
sages  about  books,  and  Holmes  has  a  sentence  which 
may  go  with  them :  "  Some  books  are  edifices,  to 
stand  as  they  are  built ;  some  are  hewn  stones,  ready 
to  form  a  part  of  future  edifices ;  some  are  quarries, 
from  which  stones  are  to  be  split  for  shaping  and 
after  use."  And  here  is  a  bit  of  drollery  from  his 
address  at  the  opening  of  the  Medical  Library  at 
Boston  :  "  A  library  like  ours  must  exercise  the  larg 
est  hospitality.  A  great  many  books  may  be  found 
in  every  large  collection  which  remind  us  of  those 
apostolic-looking  old  men  who  figure  on  the  plat 
form  at  our  political  and  other  assemblages.  Some 
of  them  have  spoken  words  of  wisdom  in  their  day, 
but  they  have  ceased  to  be  oracles ;  some  of  them 
never  had  any  particularly  important  message  for 
humanity,  but  they  add  dignity  to  the  meeting  by  their 
presence ;  they  look  wise,  whether  they  are  so  or  not, 
and  no  one  grudges  them  their  places  of  honor." 

May  it  be  said,  without  irreverence,  in  speaking  of 
Dr.  Holmes's  tastes,  that  he  had  a  considerable  infu 
sion  of  the  "  sporting  man  "  in  his  composition  ?  One 
of  his  most  cherished  memories  of  his  early  days  in 
Europe  was,  that  he  saw  Plenipotentiary  win  the 
Derby ;  and  he  always  kept  a  lively  interest  in  the 
incidents  of  the  turf.  He  knew  the  points  and  the 
style  of  the  favorites  and  the  winners  as  they  suc 
ceeded  each  other,  and  he  carried  in  his  memory  with 
extraordinary  accuracy  the  records  of  the  time  made 
in  all  the  important  "events."  His  erudition  concern 
ing  the  race-horse  sometimes  astonished  men  who  had 
always  fancied  that  they  themselves  knew  a  good  deal 
about  these  things,  but  never  imagined  that  his  mind 


8  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

could  be  busied  with  them.  He  was  like  his  own  Ma 
jor  Rowens :  "  He  knew  a  neat,  snug  hoof,  a  delicate 
pastern,  a  broad  haunch,  a  deep  chest,  a  close  ribbed- 
up  barrel,  as  well  as  any  other  man  in  the  town.  He 
was  not  to  be  taken  in  by  your  thick- jointed,  heavy- 
headed  cattle,  without  any  go  to  them,  that  suit  a 
country  parson,  nor  yet  by  the  '  gaanted-up,'  long- 
legged  animals,  with  all  their  constitutions  bred  out 
of  them,  such  as  rich  greenhorns  buy  and  cover  up 
with  their  plated  trappings."  And  in  another  place, 
sketching  this  Yankee  with  such  marvellous  skill  that 
it  seems  cruel  to  cut  out  a  piece  from  so  fine  a  whole,  he 
tells  us  that  the  Major  "  had  no  objection,  either,  to 
holding  the  reins  in  a  wagon  behind  another  kind 
of  horse,  —  a  slouching,  listless  beast,  with  a  strong 
slant  to  his  shoulder,  and  a  notable  depth  to  his  quar 
ter,  and  an  emphatic  angle  at  the  hock,  who  commonly 
walked  or  lounged  along  in  a  lazy  trot  of  five  or  six 
miles  an  hour ;  but,  if  a  lively  colt  happened  to  come 
rattling  up  alongside,  or  a  brandy-faced  old  horse- 
jockey  took  the  road  to  show  off  a  fast  nag  and  threw 
his  dust  into  the  Major's  face,  would  pick  his  legs  up 
all  at  once,  and  straighten  his  body  out,  and  swing  off 
into  a  three-minute  gait,  in  a  way  that  '  Old  Blue  * 
himself  need  not  have  been  ashamed  of."  The  pic 
ture  is  enough  to  make  an  old  country  jockey  "  wrig 
gle,"  as  Dr.  Holmes  said  that  the  Biglow  Papers  made 
him  do.  He  even  held  horse-racing  to  be  so  impor 
tant  an  interest  of  humanity  that,  in  the  preface  to  a 
late  edition  of  The  Professor,  enumerating  the  amend 
ments  made  necessary  by  sundry  striking  changes  and 
advances  which  had  taken  place  in  the  world  since  its 
first  publication,  he  included  among  them  that  "  the 
speed  of  the  trotting-horse  has  been  so  much  devel- 


OCCUPATIONS  I    METHODS   OF  WORK 

oped  that  the  record  of  the  year  when  the  fastest 
time  to  that  date  was  given  must  be  very  consider 
ably  altered." 

Neither  was  he  altogether  oblivious  even  of  the 
prize  ring ;  he  had  the  Boxiana  prints,  and  he  knew 
well  the  great  deeds,  doughty  though  brutal,  of  Hee- 
nan  and  Sayers  and  Yankee  Sullivan  and  other  cham 
pions.  This  interest,  however,  was  chiefly  from  the 
side  of  physical  development;  and  when  he  visited 
some  of  these  heroes,  and  studied  their  muscles  with 
admiration,  it  was  only  in  the  hours  of  peace ;  I  never 
heard  of  his  going  to  see  a  pugilistic  "  set-to."  The 
truth  is  that  the  Doctor  was  a  great  lover  of  fine, 
symmetrical,  powerful  growth,  whether  in  tree,  horse, 
or  man,  and  he  hugely  liked  the  fellow  who  could 
fight,  and  who  would  do  so  upon  due  occasion.  There 
are  a  few  combats  in  his  books,  described  with  much 
gusto  ;  Bernard  Langdon's  fine  muscles  are  affection 
ately  depicted,  and  made  effectively  useful ;  and  the 
sketch  of  the  Southerner  knocking  down  the  butcher 
is  like  some  of  the  English  bouts  of  Town  and  Gown. 
He  liked  mere  size,  too,  and  used  to  find  infinite 
amusement  in  holding  friendly  chats  with  the  "  giants  " 
at  the  shows. 

He  was  for  many  years,  in  mid-life,  a  zealous  boat 
ing-man,  and  before  "  improvement "  had  gouged  up 
the  bottom  of  Charles  River  to  make  building -lots 
along  its  banks,  in  the  good  old  days  when  there  was 
an  extensive  and  beautiful  estuary  of  real  water  there, 
he  was  one  of  the  first  to  pull  upon  those  lively  and 
often  sizeable  waves,  in  a  boat  of  the  "  long,  sharp- 
pointed,  black  cradle  "  pattern.  In  this  he  was  to  be 
seen  making  long  excursions  when  the  season  permit 
ted  ;  and  he  had  the  contempt  of  a  true  expert  for 


10  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

"  those  miserable  tubs,  tugging  in  which  is  to  rowing 
the  true  boat  what  riding  a  cow  is  to  bestriding  an 
Arab."  There  is  a  delightful  sketch  of  this  pursuit 
in  the  seventh  paper  of  The  Autocrat. 

These  things  were  occupations ;  but  of  sheer  hard 
work  Dr.  Holmes  did  as  much  as  any  man,  even  in 
the  industrious  communities  of  the  Eastern  States. 
People  did  not  give  him  credit  for  this,  or  at  least 
very  insufficiently.  Half  of  those  who  thought  of  him 
forgot  his  work  at  the  Medical  School  altogether, 
and  the  other  half  fancied  that  he  could  repeat  from 
year  to  year  his  lectures  on  the  unchanging  science 
of  anatomy,  much  as  the  clergyman  can  pull  out 
of  the  traditional  barrel  any  old  sermon  that  comes 
to  hand,  and  preach  it  again  for,  it  may  be,  the 
twentieth  time.  One  could  hardly  help  feeling  that 
those  easy,  colloquial  reports  of  the  chats  at  the 
Breakfast  -  Table  might  have  been  jotted  down  or 
talked  off  to  a  stenographer  in  the  same  conversa 
tional  way  in  fact,  in  which  they  purported  to  have 
been  uttered  in  fiction.  Never  were  greater  errors. 
The  lectures  were  revamped  every  year  with  genuine 
hard  labor.  Keeping  abreast  with  new  ideas,  even 
in  anatomical  studies,  meant  something ;  preparation 
each  day  called  for  some  time  and  thought ;  and  the 
tax  of  delivery,  of  holding  the  attention  of  the  tired 
and  disorderly  medical  students  of  those  days,  was  a 
considerable  drain  on  the  nervous  force.  President 
Eliot,  who  knew  whereof  he  spoke,  paid  him  very 
handsome  compliments  upon  the  amount  and  serious 
ness  of  his  labor  as  a  professor  and  instructor. 

As  for  the  matter  of  literary  composition,  it  was  a 
very  painstaking  process  with  Dr.  Holmes.  His  wit 


OCCUPATIONS:  METHODS  OF  WORK      11 

and  humor  and  thoughts  flowed  exuberantly  enough ; 
but  he  was  a  most  careful,  accurate  writer.  Not  only 
when  he  dwelt  upon,  but  when  he  even  alluded  to, 
any  topic  whatever,  whether  in  the  way  of  science  or 
history,  or  argument  or  idea,  or  of  literary  or  theo 
logical  discussion,  —  whatever  it  might  be,  —  he  made 
sure  by  minute  investigation  that  his  knowledge  was 
thorough,  and  that  his  use  and  treatment  were  correct. 
His  hand  was  always  on  the  Cyclopaedias,  the  Diction 
aries  of  biography,  the  innumerable  works  of  refer 
ence  of  every  conceivable  kind,  which  stood  in  serried 
ranks  beside  his  table.  When  he  was  writing  the  es 
say  on  Jonathan  Edwards,  he  showed  me  how  he  was 
doing  the  work  :  he  had  some  large  quarto  blank  books, 
with  the  pages  divided  into  liberal  sections  by  lines 
from  top  to  bottom ;  the  requisite  space  was  set  aside 
for  each  division  of  the  topic  in  the  biographical,  the 
theological,  and  the  critical  departments ;  the  names 
of  writers  who  had  written  of  Edwards,  disputed  with 
him,  criticised  him,  or  in  any  way  contributed  to  the 
Edwards  study,  were  set  at  the  heads  of  the  several 
columns ;  and  synopses  of  their  views  were  then  set 
down,  in  such  orderly  contra-position  as  was  possible. 
When  he  had  finished  this  huge  tabulation,  the  Doctor 
expected  to  be  master  of  everything  of  value  concern 
ing  his  subject.  "  I  can't  afford,"  he  said,  "  to  lose 
anything"  Yet  he  had  selected  Edwards  as  the  topic 
for  an  article,  because  he  had  for  years  been  greatly 
interested  in  that  terrible  theologian ;  and  before  he 
entered  upon  this  minute  and  elaborate  preparation 
for  writing,  he  was  already  so  thoroughly  informed 
that  he  could  have  delivered,  extempore,  a  lecture 
which  would  have  seemed  the  fruit  of  patient  study. 

In  this  connection,  a  couple  of  letters  written  by 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


12  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

Dr.  Holmes  to  his  friend  Dr.  Weir  Mitchell  will  be 
of  interest :  — 

TO   DR.   S.   WEIR  MITCHELL. 

BOSTON,  March  27,  1871. 

MY  DEAR  DR.  MITCHELL,  —  I  will  give  you  my 
own  experience  very  briefly,  and  then  that  of  another 
which  came  to  me  with  the  most  singular  "  aproposity," 
as  one  of  my  young  barbarians  has  it. 

I  cannot  work  many  hours  consecutively  without 
deranging  my  whole  circulating  and  calorific  system. 
My  feet  are  apt  to  get  cold,  my  head  hot,  my  muscles 
restless,  and  I  feel  as  if  I  must  get  up  and  exercise 
in  the  open  air.  This  is  in  the  morning,  and  I  very 
rarely  allow  myself  to  be  detained  indoors  later  than 
twelve  o'clock.  After  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes'  walk 
ing  I  begin  to  come  right,  and  after  two  or  three  times 
as  much  as  that  I  can  go  back  to  my  desk  for  an  hour 
or  two.  In  the  evening  it  is  different.  I  always  try 
to  stop  all  hard  work  before  eleven  o'clock  and  take  a 
book  of  light  reading  to  clear  my  mind  of  its  previous 
contents.  So  it  is  that  I  can  hardly  say  I  ever  have 
a  proper  "  brain-tire,"  because  other  systems  give  the 
alarm  first.  I  should  say  rather  that  too  long  brain 
work  gives  me  a  sense  of  disgust,  like  over-feeding, 
than  one  of  actual  fatigue.  It  sometimes  happens 
that  my  brain  gets  going  and  I  cannot  stop  it  —  a 
very  common  experience  —  and  then  I  lie  awake,  but 
Ms  again  is  different  from  physical  fatigue  of  the 
thinking  organ.  I  want  to  sleep  and  cannot,  —  I 
count  —  I  do  sums  —  I  repeat  passages  from  memory, 
but  the  underthought  keeps  grumbling  on  like  the 
bass  in  a  Beethoven  symphony.  In  a  word  my  brain, 
as  a  rule,  will  not  let  itself  get  fatigued.  It  becomes 


OCCUPATIONS  :    METHODS   OF  WORK  18 

msted,  rather,  and  throws  up  work.  In  compo 
sition,  especially  poetical  composition,  I  stand  on  the 
bank  of  a  river  and  hold  myself  very  still,  watching 
the  thoughts  that  float  by  on  the  stream  of  association. 
If  they  come  abundantly  and  of  the  right  kind,  there 
is  a  great  excitement,  sometimes  an  exalted  state, 
almost  like  etherization,  incompatible  with  a  sense  of 
fatigue  while  it  lasts,  and  followed  by  a  relief  which 
shows  there  has  been  a  tension  of  which  I  could  not 
be  conscious  at  the  time.  So  much  for  myself.  — 
While  your  letter  was  in  my  hand  Dr.  Edward  [H.] 
Clarke,  our  first  medical  practitioner,  Professor  of 
Materia  Medica  in  our  school,  came  in,  and  knowing 
him  to  be  a  thinker,  I  questioned  him. 

He  was  the  first  scholar  of  his  class  in  the  Academic 
department  at  Harvard,  —  the  only  first  scholar  I  re 
member  who  ever  studied  medicine.  He  studied  too 
hard  in  the  first  part  of  his  course,  and  was  restricted 
by  his  advisers  to  two  or  three  hours'  work  a  day.  The 
effect,  he  tells  me,  was  this :  He  learned  to  work  his 
brain  very  hard  during  the  short  time  he  gave  to  study, 
—  a  habit  which  he  has  kept  up  to  this  day,  so  that  he 
says  he  can  get  up  a  new  lecture  of  an  hour  in  less 
than  an  hour's  time,  which  for  such  a  lecturer  to  say 
means  a  good  deal.  As  a  consequence  of  this  forced 
labor  he  experiences  a  distinct  sense  of  cerebral  fa 
tigue.  There  is  a  kind  of  pressure  he  experiences, 
such  that  he  habitually  clasps  his  hands  over  his  head 
as  if  to  "hold  his  head  down."  After  such  severe 
mental  labor  he  wishes  to  lie  down  and  rest.  But 
after  moderate,  prolonged  mental  work  he  likes  exer 
cise  as  I  do.  He  is  very  averse  to  the  crowded  hour 
or  two's  work  on  account  of  the  effects  which  he  de 
scribes. 


14  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

To  return  to  myself,  I  cannot  express  the  loathing 
with  which  my  mind  turns  away  from  a  subject  it 
has  got  enough  of.  I  like  nine  tenths  of  any  matter 
I  study,  but  I  do  not  like  to  lick  the  plate.  If  I  did,  I 
suppose  I  should  be  more  of  a  man  of  science  and  find 
my  brain  tired  oftener  than  I  do.  Mental  nausea 
takes  the  place  of  mental  fatigue  with  me.  I  believe 
in  the  depleting,  nerve-straining  qualities  of  our 
climate,  etc.  Brown-Sequard  told  us  his  animals  do 
not  bleed  so  much  in  America  as  they  did  in  Europe  ! 
Is  not  that  a  startling  statement  ? 

Pardon  my  hasty  letter,  written  only  an  hour  or 
two  after  the  receipt  of  yours,  and  believe  me 
Always  truly  yours. 


TO   THE   SAME. 

BOSTON,  March  30,  1871. 

DEAR  DR.  MITCHELL, — .1  shrink  with  a  blush  of 
ingenuous  modesty  from  having  my  name  connected 
publicly  with  the  idiosyncrasies  I  told  you  of  in  my 
free  and  easy  letter.  The  facts  of  course  you  can  use, 
if  you  can  disguise  them  so  as  not  to  have  them 
fastened  upon  me.  But  I  felt  as  if  I  were  condemn 
ing  my  own  intellect,  according  to  the  judgment  of 
many  persons.  I  have  often  regretted  not  having 
forcibly  trained  myself  to  the  exhaustive  treatment  of 
some  limited  subject,  and  if  I  thought  I  should  live  to 
be  a  hundred  years  old  I  would  devote  ten  years  of 
the  time,  as  it  is,  to  such  specialized  study.  You 
remember  the  story  of  the  grammarian  who  had  given 
his  life  to  the  study  of  certain  nouns,  and  who  regret 
ted  on  his  death-bed  that  he  had  not  restricted  himself 
to  the  consideration  of  the  genitive  case.  When  I 


OCCUPATIONS  :  METHODS  OF  WORK      15 

read  your  paper  on  the  poison  of  the  rattlesnake  I  felt 
that  such  a  labor  as  that,  patient,  thorough,  leaving 
nothing  to  be  gone  over  again,  was  just  the  sort  of 
work  I  ought  to  have  been  compelled  to  begin,  and 
led  by  other  influences  to  carry  to  its  completion. 
But  my  nature  is  to  snatch  at  all  the  fruits  of  know 
ledge  and  take  a  good  bite  out  of  the  sunny  side  — 
after  that  let  in  the  pigs. 

A  thoroughly  detestable  statement ;  but  let  it  stand, 
for  there  is  too  much  truth  in  it.  You  can  see  I  do 
not  want  to  have  it  shown  up  as  my  particular  form 
of  mental  weakness  —  shall  I  say,  or  only  special  de 
velopment.  It  seems  like  putting  a  master  key  to  the 
strong  box  that  holds  my  intellectual  treasures,  such 
as  they  are,  into  the  hands  of  any  malignant  —  and  I 
think  we  have  such,  who  like  to  use  anything  they 
can  get  hold  of  relating  to  any  of  their  betters. 

Enfin.  I  think  you  might  use  my  experience,  as 
to  the  surfeit  of  a  subject  coming  before  the  sense  of 
fatigue,  without  making  it  clear  who  the  person  was 
that  made  this  revelation. 

Nobody  but  myself  could  tell  it  in  full  with  all  the 
reservations,  qualifications,  conditions  of  every  kind, 
compensations,  philosophical  justifications,  crack-put 
tying  subterfuges,  and  counterclaims  to  discursive 
intelligence,  which  render  life  tolerable  with  such  a 
vicious  and  kicking  brain  as  I  have  described  my  will 
as  bestriding. 

I  am  glad  my  discourse  interested  you,  and  though 
I  am  afraid  you  will  not  think  much  of  me  after  these 
two  letters,  you  must  remember  that  I  have  at  least 
the  merit  of  appreciating  your  sincere  and  thoroughly 
satisfactory  labors. 


16  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

Very  accurate  and  painstaking  was  he  concerning 
the  literary  finish  of  his  works.  He  wrote  a  simple, 
what  may  be  called  a  gentlemanlike  style,  and  of 
great  purity,  but  crowded  with  allusions,  so  that  it 
was  truly  remarked  by  one  of  his  critics,  and  has  been 
often  repeated  by  others,  that  the  greater  the  scholar 
ship  of  the  reader,  the  greater  also  the  pleasure  which 
he  would  derive  from  Dr.  Holmes's  writings.  The 
same  thing  was  true  of  Thackeray ;  both  wrote  for 
educated  and  well-read  audiences.  I  remember  once 
hearing  a  gentleman  of  some  reputation  in  literature 
say  —  actually  in  addressing  the  Board  of  Overseers 
of  a  distinguished  seat  of  learning  —  that  he  did  not 
approve  of  teaching  young  men  to  write  "  good  Eng 
lish,"  to  use  words  accurately  and  to  construct  sen 
tences  grammatically  ;  on  the  contrary,  he  said  that  he 
wanted  an  infusion  of  the  wild  rough  inaccuracies  of 
the  great  new  West !  He  was  the  victim  of  a  foolish 
notion,  that  one  of  the  available  ways  to  show  "  Amer 
ican  independence  of  England"  was  by  devising  a 
degraded  dialect  of  the  English  language  for  use  in 
the  United  States.  Nor  was  he  alone  in  this  feeling 
that  a  coarse  and  imperfect  form  of  speech  was  good 
enough  for  us  ;  there  was,  for  a  while,  a  mild  pseudo- 
literary  fad  in  this  direction.  Dr.  Holmes  looked 
upon  it  with  disgust  and  indignation,  making  his 
opinions  known  with  his  usual  outspoken  courage,  and 
exemplifying  them  by  his  own  action,  with  the  result 
that  he  was  for  a  while  subjected  to  some  abuse,  which 
he  endured  with  tranquillity,  or  rather  with  indiffer 
ence.  An  English  writer,  in  the  Quarterly  Review, 
has  a  passage  on  this  matter,  which  I  desire  to  quote : 

"  Opinions  so  directly  contrary  in  many  respects  to 
the  main  direction  of  American  movement  brought 


OCCUPATIONS  :  METHODS  OF  WORK      17 

Holmes  at  one  time  into  disrepute  with  the  more  ad 
vanced  of  his  countrymen.  He  was  accused  of  attach- 
ing  excessive  importance  to  conventionalities  of  dress, 
manners,  and  speech  ;  he  was  charged  with  using  his 
influence  to  starve  and  paralyze  literary  originality. 
To  us  it  seems  that  his  attitude  was  abundantly  justi 
fied.  The  debt  which  the  best  American  literature 
and  all  who  in  the  Old  World  and  the  New  appre 
ciate  its  mixture  of  freshness  and  refinement  owe  to 
Holmes  is  very  great.  How  great  the  debt  was  has 
not  yet  been  fully  recognized  by  his  countrymen. 
When  young  America  demanded  that  the  political 
revolution  which  separated  the  Old  and  New  Worlds 
should  have  its  literary  counterpart  in  a  similar  revolt, 
Holmes  threw  all  his  influence  into  the  opposite  scale. 
He  urged,  with  keen  satire  as  well  as  with  the  force 
of  example,  that  even  a  Republic  must  recognize  the 
laws  of  conventional  decorum,  and  that  those  who 
enter  the  Temple  of  the  Muses  outrage  propriety  if 
they  ostentatiously  flaunt  their  working -dress.  To 
him,  as  much  as  to  any  other  man,  we  owe  it,  that 
the  Versailles  of  American  literature  has  not  been 
invaded  to  a  greater  extent  than  it  has  by  the  vocab 
ulary  and  manners  of  the  '  Halles.'  " 

Dr.  Holmes  occasionally  discussed  with  Richard 
Grant  White,  who  had  made  a  close  study  of  the 
English  language,  the  use  of  one  or  another  word  or 
phrase  ;  and  these  two  letters  may  be  interesting. 

TO   RICHARD    GRANT   WHITE. 

March  28,  1868. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  WHITE,  —  I  was  greatly  pleased 
with  your  kind  letter,  and  enjoyed  the  two  articles 
from  the  Galaxy  exceedingly.  I  hunted  up  the 

VOL.  H. 


18  OLIVER   WENDELL  HOLMES 

"jewelry,"  and  found  it  in  The  Professor  at  the 
Breakfast- Table,  page  27,  in  quotation  marks  it  is 
true  ;  but,  I  am  inclined  to  think,  not  so  much  as  be 
ing  a  questionable  word  as  because  it  is  one  of  the 
stately  names  applied  to  paltry  things  by  our  pinch 
beck  plebeians.  I  do  not  know,  however,  that  I  have 
used  the  word  ;  at  any  rate  I  think  I  shall  be  on  the 
lookout  for  it  hereafter.  I  was  delighted  with  your 
vindication  of  "  some  "  three  or  four,  etc.  It  is  a 
beautiful,  brief,  erudite  excursus,  and  as  I  followed 
you  from  the  Frog  Pond  to  the  Danube  my  heart 
swelled  with  the  thought  that  so  good  a  judge  as  your 
self  counted  me  not  unworthy  to  handle  the  words 
that  Alfred  and  Shakespeare  and  Bacon  had  spoken. 
I  am  so  pleased  with  your  hits  at  several  detestable 
expressions  that  I  must  pick  them  out.  "  Eetiring  " 
for  going  to  bed,  —  I  have  had  my  shy  at  that  in  The 
Autocrat,  page  241.  "  Proven  "  for  proved.  Will 
you  believe  me  when  I  tell  you  that  Lowell  uses 
"  proven  "  (in  his  very  last  article,  if  I  remember 
right,  in  the  North  American)  ?  I  could  not  believe 
my  eyes,  and  accused  him  of  leze  majesty  to  the  face, 
as  Paul  withstood  Peter.  It  shows  how  the  best  of 
us  are  liable  to  be  caught.  I  once  used  the  expres 
sion  "  In  our  midst."  Edward  Everett  took  me  to 
task  for  it,  and  showed  me  an  old  review  in  which  Dr. 
Oilman,  of  Charleston,  S.  C.,  had  attacked  him  for 
the  same  phrase.  The  "  consummation  "  criticism  is 
pyramidal.  I  think  I  have  seen  the  word  so  used 
myself.  I  tell  a  story  in  one  of  my  books  of  a  mar 
riage  between  two  servants,  I  saw  or  heard  —  (not  con 
summated  but  "  transpire,"  to  use  the  "  newspapor- 
ial  "  or  "  reportorial  "  dialect),  in  which  the  question 
was  thus  put  by  the  Kev.  Baron  Stow,  Baptist  minis- 


OCCUPATIONS  :  METHODS  OF  WOKK      19 

ter  of  this  city :  Wilt  thou  have  this  Lady  ?  and, 
Wilt  thou  have  this  Gentleman  ?  Was  not  this  an 
euphuism  of  solar,  nay  of  systemic,  dimensions  ? 

TO   THE   SAME. 

September  27,  1868. 

MY  DEAR  ME.  WHITE,  —  I  have  been  reading 
your  article  in  the  Galaxy,  which  you  kindly  sent  me, 
with  pleasure  and  interest,  as  I  read  all  your  philologi 
cal  articles.  You  will  indulge  me  in  a  comment  or 
two.  If  I  am  not  mistaken,  the  two  first  lines  of 
nursery  poetry  you  give  on  page  518  are  both  slightly 
in  error.  "  Hush,  my  babe,  lie  still,"  etc.,  it  is,  as  I 
remember  it.  "  Now  I  lay  me  down  to  sleep  "  is,  I 
think,  the  correct  version.  I  do  not  see  why  you 
should  object  to  "  experience  "  as  a  verb.  It  is  neces 
sary  to  avoid  a  paraphrase,  unless  we  return  to  the 
old  use  of  experiment  as  signifying  to  learn  by  trial, 
etc. ;  and  we  want  that  as  signifying  to  try  in  order 
to  learn.  What  would  our  country  deacons  be  if 
they  had  not  "  experienced  religion  "  ?  I  can  beat 
your  stories  about  limb  for  leg.  A  schoolmate  of 
mine,  a  girl  of  some  fourteen  or  fifteen  years  old 
at  the  time,  —  niece  of  an  American  celebrity  of 
the  first  water,  —  had  occasion  to  mention  to  me, 
a  year  or  two  younger  than  herself,  a  misfortune 
which  had  happened  to  her  mother  (it  was  a  fracture 
of  the  femur,  in  surgical  language)  —  "  Since  mother 
broke  "  —  (she  hesitated)  —  "  her  foot"  I  assure 
you  this  is  a  genuine  recollection.  —  "  Gentleman" 
and  "  lady"  Did  you  ever  see  one  of  my  failures 
called  The  Professor  at  the  Breakfast- Table  ?  If 
you  did,  and  looked  at  the  182d  page,  you  saw  an 
account  of  the  use  of  these  words  for  "  man  "  and 


20  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

"  woman  "  in  the  marriage  service.  I  should  have 
said  "  stop  at  So-and-So's  "  was  a  Yankee  vulgarism. 
Our  country  folk  always  say  they  are  stopping  at 
cousin  Jehoiakim's,  etc.  Smock  is  a  vulgar  word, 
onomato-poetically  vulgar  ;  shift  will  do  better ;  both 
sound  naked  ;  chemise  does  not  call  up  the  bare  body. 
We  clothe  the  nude  word  by  Frenching  it. 

I  hate  shew  for  shewed,  in  spite  of  your  analogies. 
I  only  hear  it  from  the  half-breeds,  or  now  and  then 
from  a  careless  person  who  has  caught  it  in  bad  com 
pany. 

Has  Mr.  Bergh  the  h  final  ?  I  am  not  sure.  I  find 
your  article  very  pleasant,  with  its  light,  good-natured 
satire,  as  well  as  instructive. 

Somebody  must  have  made  some  very  foolish  criti 
cisms,  which  called  forth  this  letter :  — 

March  7,  1891. 

MY  DEAR  LADY,  —  I  am  very  much  obliged  to  you 
for  taking  the  trouble  to  tell  me  the  story  of  your  first 
acquaintance  with  my  poems.  The  particular  one, 
"  The  Music  Grinders,"  was  unlucky  in  having  two  or 
three  words  which  alarmed  your  teacher,  who  was,  I 
suppose,  of  the  prunes  and  prisms  variety  of  peda- 
goguesses !  If  her  injured  shade  still  wanders  on 
earth,  it  may  see  by  my  later  editions  that  "  filthy  " 
is  changed  to  "  odious,"  which  I  hope  she  recognizes 
as  rendering  the  line  presentable  !  As  for  "  oath  " 
and  "  curse,"  I  am  sorry  to  say  they  stand  as  of  old  ; 
but  I  suspect  readers  are  tougher  now  than  they  used 
to  be.  Your  letter  gives  me  pleasure,  and  I  am  grate 
ful  to  you  for  it. 


OCCUPATIONS  :    METHODS   OF  WORK  21 

When  the  Doctor  had  brought  any  of  his  work  to 
the  point  of  finish  which  suited  him,  he  was  very  chary 
of  alteration  by  any  one  else.  I  fancy  that  he  was 
seldom  subjected  to  it ;  for  a  matter  of  the  kind,  stated 
in  the  following  paragraph  from  one  of  his  letters, 
was  referred  to  by  him  with  a  frequency  indicative  of 
its  being  an  unusual  occurrence. 

"  /  very  rarely  adopt  the  suggestion  of  another  per 
son  ;  but  I  have  done  such  a  thing  and  sometimes  been 
sorry,  and  sometimes  glad,  that  I  have  done  it.  Ed 
ward  Everett  corrected,  as  he  thought,  a  line  for  me, 
and  I  accepted  his  alteration ;  forty  years  afterwards 
I  restored  the  original  reading.  So  you  see  I  am  not 
like  to  call  you  to  account  for  not  accepting  my  sug 
gestions." 

When  a  lady  suggested  a  slight  verbal  improve 
ment  in  a  line  of  "  The  Last  Leaf,"  he  rendered  an 
elaborate  and  public  acknowledgment,  which  would 
have  been  big  enough  as  thanks  for  a  whole  stanza. 

This  accurate  habit  of  mind  of  the  Doctor  filled 
him  with  an  anxious  and  ever-present  fear  of  plagia 
rism.  The  dread  of  unwittingly  committing  a  literary 
theft  seemed  at  times  actually  to  haunt  him ;  he  said 
that  he  did  not  expect  that  such  an  accident  would 
never  befall,  but  he  pleased  himself  with  the  belief 
that  his  extreme  precaution  had  made  it  at  least  of 
rare  occurrence. 

As  for  repeating  himself,  that  was  a  different  mat 
ter,  —  objectionable,  but  entirely  honest.  He  did  it 
sometimes.  What  he  said  on  the  subject  was  very 
happily  put :  — 

"  You  don't  suppose  that  my  remarks  made  at  this 
table  are  like  so  many  postage-stamps,  do  you,  —  each 
to  be  only  once  uttered  ?  If  you  do,  you  are  mistaken. 


22  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

He  must  be  a  poor  creature  who  does  not  often  repeat 
himself.  Imagine  the  author  of  the  excellent  piece  of 
advice,  '  Know  thyself/  never  alluding  to  that  senti 
ment  again  during  the  course  of  a  protracted  existence ! 
Why,  the  truths  a  man  carries  about  with  him  are 
his  tools ;  and  do  you  think  a  carpenter  is  bound  to 
use  the  same  plane  but  once  to  smooth  a  knotty  board 
with,  or  to  hang  up  his  hammer  after  it  has  driven  its 
first  nail  ?  I  shall  never  repeat  a  conversation,  but 
an  idea  often.  I  shall  use  the  same  types  when  I  like, 
but  not  commonly  the  same  stereotypes.  A  thought 
is  often  original,  though  you  have  uttered  it  a  hundred 
times.  It  has  come  to  you  over  a  new  route,  by  a  new 
and  express  train  of  associations." 

He  was  himself  the  victim  of  a  very  curious,  of 
course  entirely  accidental,  theft  of  this  kind.  When 
The  Innocents  Abroad  appeared,  it  bore  on  its  un 
blushing  front  a  dedication  which  had  already  done 
the  like  service  for  the  Doctor's  Songs  in  Many  Keys. 
Mark  Twain  referred  to  the  incident  humorously  at  the 
Atlantic  Breakfast ;  told  how  indignant  he  was  when 
a  friend  charged  him  with  the  act ;  how  penitently, 
when  he  found  the  charge  to  be  true,  he  had  writ 
ten  to  Dr.  Holmes ;  and  how  kindly  the  Doctor  had 
replied,  saying  that  he  believed  that  all  writers  at 
times  worked  over  the  ideas  of  others  unconsciously, 
and  conceiving  the  development  to  be  their  own. 

So  careful  was  the  Doctor  with  his  "  copy  "  that  he 
received  the  liberal  praise  of  his  printers,  a  thing 
which  I  fancy  has  befallen  few  authors,  at  least  before 
the  advent  of  the  typewriting  sisterhood.  Mr.  Hough- 
ton  bore  tribute  to  his  neatly  written  white  pages, 
bearing  few  interlineations,  and  those  very  carefully 
made ;  and  said  that  so  few  corrections  had  to  be  made 


OCCUPATIONS  :  METHODS  OF  WORK      23 

in  going  through  the  press  that  the  Doctor  "  caused  us 
but  little  trouble."  On  one  occasion,  in  sending  a 
poem  to  a  newspaper,  he  wrote,  in  the  accompanying 
note :  "  Poems  are  rarely  printed  correctly  in  news 
papers.  This  is  the  reason  so  many  poets  die  young. 
Please  correct  carefully." 

Yet  all  the  Doctor's  care  could  not  always  save  him 
from  the  inevitable  errors  of  the  printing-house.  In 
one  of  his  papers  occurred  the  sentence :  "  If  all  the 
medicine  were  thrown  into  the  sea,  it  would  be  the 
better  for  mankind  and  the  worse  for  the  fishes."  But 
instead  of  "fishes"  the  printed  page  made  him  say 
"physicians"  The  sentence  as  he  intended  it  to  be 
excited  criticism  enough,  but  the  proof-reader's  amend 
ment  changed  criticism  into  a  storm  of  indignation. 

The  Doctor  practised  a  pretty  strict  economy  in  what 
may  properly  be  called  his  literary  business.  The 
wit  and  humor  and  wisdom  in  his  brain  were  his  stock 
in  trade,  just  as  are  the  merchant's  goods  in  his  ware 
house.  He  designed  to  deal  with  them,  guard  and 
save  them,  and  exchange  them  to  as  good  advantage 
as  possible  for  the  paper  money  of  the  Republic,  — 
which  I  take  to  be  the  proper  adaptation  for  us  of 
the  good  old  phrase,  "  the  coin  of  the  realm."  The 
Autocrat  says :  "  What  do  you  think  an  admiring 
friend  said  the  other  day  to  one  that  was  talking  good 
things,  —  good  enough  to  print  ?  '  Why,'  said  he, 
'you  are  wasting  merchantable  literature,  a  cash 
article,  at  the  rate,  as  nearly  as  I  can  tell,  of  fifty 
dollars  an  hour.' '  Dr.  Holmes  appeared  to  be  lavish 
in  this  fashion  himself.  I  remember  one  evening  two 
or  three  of  us,  then  young  collegians,  were  sitting  at 
his  dinner-table,  in  the  Charles  Street  house,  when 
The  Autocrat  had  just  taught  him  what  sums  he  could 


24  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

win  by  his  brains ;  he  talked  on  most  charmingly  for 
an  hour  or  two  after  the  cloth  was  removed ;  then 
suddenly  stopped  short,  sprang  up,  exclaimed :  "Why ! 
I  believe  I  've  wasted  a  hundred  dollars  worth  on  you 
boys  to-night,"  and  vanished  merrily  and  in  a  twin 
kling.  In  fact,  however,  he  was  by  no  means  wasteful ; 
and  whenever,  wherever,  however  he  turned  out  a  good 
article,  to  use  the  language  of  trade,  he  took  care  in 
due  season  to  get  the  value  of  it.  "It  is  a  capital 
plan,"  said  the  Autocrat,  "  to  carry  a  tablet  with  you, 
and,  when  you  find  yourself  felicitous,  take  notes  of 
your  own  conversation."  Now  the  Doctor  never  did 
this,  of  course ;  but  the  best  things  which  he  said,  the 
best  bits  in  his  letters,  were  very  sure  to  be  encountered 
afterwards  in  print.  He  gathered  up  the  fragments, 
that  nothing  should  be  lost. 

Occasionally  the  exuberance  of  Dr.  Holmes's  merri 
ment  bubbled  up  in  the  shape  of  puns.  The  best 
opinion  will  probably  declare  that  the  collection  of 
these  trifles,  which  occupies  a  few  pages  in  an  early 
paper  of  The,  Autocrat,  is  a  disfigurement.  But  such 
gay  sparkles,  when  they  occur  in  ordinary  correspond 
ence,  should  find  criticism  silent.  These  letters,  though 
some  of  the  puns  are  local,  and  so  a  little  occult,  may 
amuse  the  pun-lover :  — 

TO   DR.    WILLIAM   HUNT.1 

21  CHARLES  STREET,  May  25, 1863. 

MY  DEAR  DR.  HUNT,  —  Wendell_  has  been  doing 
very  well,  but  of  course  without  any  notable  change. 

1  At  the  battle  of  Fredericksburg,  May,  1863,  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  Holmes,  whose  regiment  formed  a  part  of  the  corps  of 
Major-General  Sedgwick,  was  severely  wounded  in  the  heel.  He 
was  carried  homeward,  and  on  the  way  he  remained  for  a  while 
in  Philadelphia,  where  he  was  under  the  care  of  Dr.  Hunt. 


OCCUPATIONS  :  METHODS  OF  WORK      25 

There  has  been  very  little  pain,  no  mark  of  inflamma 
tion,  nothing  but  what  belongs  to  the  healing  process. 
Dr.  Bigelow  probed  the  wound  yesterday  and  found 
one  portion  of  bone  movable,  and  another  part  fixed 
but  denuded.  He  is  in  excellent  spirits,  not  at  all 
nervous,  as  when  he  was  last  wounded,  is  very  reason 
ably  tractable,  avoids  stimulants,  smokes  not  enor 
mously,  feeds  pretty  well,  and  has  kept  tolerably  quiet 
until  to-day,  when  Dr.  Bigelow  let  him  ride  out,  and 
is,  on  the  whole,  a  quite  endurable  patient. 

Again  I  must  thank  you  for  your  kindness  in  taking 
charge  of  him,  and  pouring  oil  and  wine  into  his 
wounds  —  in  a  metaphorical  sense.  If  I  contributed 
in  any  way  to  your  enjoying  your  visit  to  Boston,  it  is 
nothing  to  the  aid  and  comfort  you  have  rendered 
him  again  and  again,  at  a  time  when  skilful  and  care 
ful  treatment  were  perhaps  a  matter  of  life  and  death, 
or  of  permanent  injury,  at  the  least,  on  one  hand, 
and  harmless  scars  on  the  other. 

Dr.  Bigelow  has  done  nothing  but  keep  the  wound 
open  as  you  did.  He  makes  him  use  a  little  plug  of 
carrot  for  that  purpose,  which  is  handy  enough,  and 
seems  to  agree  very  well  with  the  wound. 

There  is  something  wrong  about  your  quotation, 
non  animal,  etc.,  etc.  I  understood  that  you  pur 
chased  a  horse^  whereas  the  line  refers  to  the  female 

..."  qui  trans  mare  currant." 

I  should  like  to  see  you  in  the  saddle  upon  your 
Vermont  steed ;  it  would  so  remind  me  of  the  Green 
Mountings.  —  Also,  I  pinched  W.'s  heel  a  little  the 
other  day  and  asked  him  into  what  vegetable  I  had 
turned  his  carrot.  No  answer. 

Why,  into  a  Pa's  nip !  was  my  response. 


26  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

The  weather  here  is  very  cold  and  the  spring  puns 
are  very  backward.  Early  Joe  Millers,  though  forced 
so  as  to  be  up  by  the  1st  of  April,  are  like  to  yield 
b?it  a  poor  crop.  The  art  6*  jokes  don't  flourish.  I 
wish  you  to  see  that  we  are  some  punkins  here  in 
Hub  town,  though  you  have  the  demirep-utation  of 
making  worse  puns  and  more  of  them  in  your  city 
than  are  made  in  any  other  habitable  portion  of  the 
globe.  The  tendency  is  hereditary,  no  doubt  —  all 
vices  are.  Did  not  Alexander  the  Great  inherit  his 
tendency  to  get  drunk  from  his  father,  the  notorious 
Fill-up  of  Macedon  ?  —  Good-by,  my  kind  friend  and 
my  son's  friend,  whom  I  have  delicately  commemorated 
in  my  "  Hunt  after  the  Captain." 

P.  S.  I  have  at  last  found  a  man  who  has  asked 
me  about  W.'s  heel  without  referring  to  Achilles ! 
"  An  Address  without  a  Phoenix !  " 

TO  F.    A.    ANGELL. 

March  31,  1864. 

DEAR  SIR,  —  I  often  wonder  how  a  man  gifted 
with  a  beautiful  but  too  suggestive  name,  like  yours, 
manages  to  get  through  the  world  and  keep  his 
temper.  What  infinite  changes  must  have  been  rung 
upon  the  celestial  title  you  bear  !  How  every  quota 
tion  in  which  it  occurs  must  have  grown  so  odiously 
familiar  to  your  ears  that  you  can  see  it  rising  to  the 
lips  of  the  man  who  is  going  to  utter  it,  while  it  is  yet 
a  mere  unformed  idiotic  purpose  in  his  feeble  con 
sciousness  !  How  many  times  per  annum,  taking  one 
season  with  another,  do  you  hear :  — 

"  Angels  and  ministers  of  grace  defend  us  "  ? 
How  large  a  proportion  of  your  friends,  as  nearly 


OCCUPATIONS  :    METHODS   OF  WOEK  27 

as  you  can  compute  the  amount,  are  in  the  habit  of 
saying,  when  you  call  to  see  them :  — 

Like  ditto  visits,  few  and  far  between  ? 

Do  your  flatterers  speak  of  all  the  rest  of  mankind 
as  being  made  a  little  lower  than  the  ditto  ? 

Are  you  not  told  several  times  a  week,  on  an  aver 
age,  that  no  woman  could  resist  your  suit,  as  she  could 
not  refuse  to  be  changed  into  a  ditto?  Have  you 
ever  corresponded  with  Deville,  the  famous  phrenolo 
gist  in  the  Strand,  London?  I  presume  he  is  de 
scended  from  the  same  stock  with  yourself,  but  that 
some  ancestor  of  his  must  have  fallen  and  had  his 
name  changed.  Sir  Koderick  Impey  Murchison  is 
probably  a  branch  of  the  same  family.  I  should  fear 
that  after  a  certain  length  of  time  it  would  become 
unendurable  to  live  in  a  perpetual  atmosphere  of 
pleasantries  suggested  by  one's  name.  Did  you  ever 
pass  a  whole  evening  with  friends  where  it  was  not 
played  upon?  Have  you  turned  misanthropic,  and 
do  you  shun  society  in  consequence  of  the  perpetual 
attempts  made  on  your  good  name  ?  There  is  one 
family  in  this  city  you  ought  to  know ;  of  course  I 
mean  the  Wings.  I  have  always  understood  they 
were  connected  to  you  in  some  way.  Your  compli 
mentary  letter  almost  "  raised  a  mortal  to  the  skies." 
I  hope  mine  has  not,  by  its  trivialities,  "  brought  an 
etc.  down." 

TO   MISS   LOUISE   IMOGEN   GUINEY. 

April  18,  1889. 

I  thank  you  for  your  pleasant  note,  dear  Miss 
Louise,  and  I  wish  you  all  happiness  in  your  pro 
jected  visit  to  Europe.  You  must  not  think  of  chang- 


28  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

ing  your  Guiney  until  you  get  back  among  your  own 
people  here  in  New  England. 

Hoping  that  you  will  soon  be  in  circulation  among 
us  once  more, 

I  am  faithfully  yours 

O.  W.  HOLMES. 

Mr.  Charles  Francis  Adams  tells  me  that  one  fore 
noon,  when  he  and  Mr.  Schurz  were  calling  on  Dr. 
Holmes,  a  copy  of  Worcester's  Unabridged  Diction 
ary  lay  on  his  desk.  The  Doctor  told  them  that  a 
canvasser  for  The  Century  Dictionary  had  just  called, 
teasing  him  for  a  subscription.  "  No,"  said  the  Doc 
tor,  "I'm  too  old — eighty  years — I  shan't  live  to  see 
the  Century  finished."  To  which  the  encouraging  book- 
agent  :  "  Nay,  Doctor,  you  won't  have  to  live  so  very 
much  longer  to  use  our  book;  we 've  already  got  to  G." 
"  And  you  may  go  to  — £,  if  you  like !  "  exclaimed  the 
little  Doctor ;  and  the  canvasser  went  —  somewhere. 

Dr.  Holmes's  medical  line  of  thought,  in  topic, 
illustration,  expression,  was  so  prominent  in  his  writ 
ings  that  some  persons  regarded  it  as  a  blemish. 
Others,  more  wisely,  considered  that  it  broadened  his 
horizon,  furnished  him  with  many  happy  suggestions, 
and  especially  gave  him  a  useful  habit  of  accuracy 
and  thoroughness.  The  (London)  Lancet,  speaking 
of  him  as  a  distinguished  example  of  the  physician  in 
literature,  says  of  him,  very  well,  as  it  seems  to  me : 
"In  him  the  physician  —  now  as  anatomist  or  physiolo 
gist,  now  as  psychologist,  now  as  diagnostician  —  was 
ever  present  and  ever  speaking.  He  wrote  no  book 
without  drawing  largely  upon  his  scientific  experience ; 
he  displayed  in  all  his  literary  workmanship,  in  thought 
as  much  as  in  expression,  an  accurate  tolerance  —  a 


OCCUPATIONS  :    METHODS   OF  WOKK  29 

capability  of  taking  the  large  view,  with  a  resolve  to 
be  correct  about  small  things — that  we  make  bold  to 
say,  as  he  would  often  proudly  say,  had  been  largely 
developed  by  his  particular  training ;  and  many  of  his 
wittiest  little  parables  and  paraphrases,  many  of  the 
most  characteristic  sayings  of  those  three  charming 
rulers  of  the  breakfast-table,  were  the  direct  outcome 
of  his  medical  learning."  Moving  in  a  different  direc 
tion  is  the  remark  of  his  kinsman,  Colonel  Henry 
Lee,  a  gentleman  whose  opinion  is  well  worth  having 
on  any  matter  relating  to  Dr.  Holmes.  He  said,  ad 
dressing  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society  after  the 
Doctor's  death :  "  Fortunate  for  Dr.  Holmes  were  his 
practice  and  his  lectures  for  thirty-five  years.  It  gave 
him  promptness,  accountability,  resolution,  touch  with 
the  world.  It  was  this  commerce  with  the  world  that 
widened  his  observations  and  his  sympathy." 

Though  all  the  world  thinks  of  Dr.  Holmes  as  a 
wit,  he  was  in  fact  a  writer  with  very  grave  and  seri 
ous  purposes.  From  a  long  line  of  pious  ancestry  he 
inherited  a  conscience  which  was  ever  vigilant  and 
almost  tyranically  dominant.  Nothing  would  have 
humiliated  him  more  than  to  be  regarded  as  a  writer 
whose  chief  object,  or  at  least  principal  achievement, 
had  been  the  entertainment  of  his  readers.  He  was  a 
man  profoundly  in  earnest,  deeply  conscientious.  He 
wrote  under  an  ever-present  sense  of  responsibility. 
No  temptation  of  fame,  influence,  or  popularity  would 
ever  have  induced  him  to  state  anything  which  he  did 
not  believe,  or  to  withhold  or  exaggerate  or  mis-color 
what  he  did  believe.  The  accuracy  and  propriety 
which  have  been  imputed  to  him  in  the  form  and  sub 
stance  of  his  writings  extended  to  the  moral  element 
in  them.  He  was  extremely  careful  to  say  with  preci- 


30  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

sion  that  which  he  truly  thought.  The  result  was 
that  in  all  the  thirteen  volumes  of  his  collected  Works 
there  is  probably  not  a  line  which  he  would  wish  to 
expunge.  He  was  an  entirely  cleanly  writer.  Thirty 
years  ago,  this  would  have  been  assumed  rather  than 
mentioned,  but  the  sudden  dash  towards  the  pig-sty, 
which  has  been  made  by  so  many  writers  lately, 
makes  it  desirable  to  declare  that  Dr.  Holmes  was  not 
of  this  herd.  He  had  too  much  respect  for  himself,  for 
his  fellow  men  and  women,  and  for  literature,  which 
he  loved,  to  write  grossly.  English  and  American 
writers  might  declare  their  prurient  books  to  be  dis 
cussions  of  "  social  problems,"  and  Frenchmen  might 
allege  that  all  nastiness  is  reality,  and  all  reality- 
is  nastiness.  The  Doctor  was  not  to  be  thus  de 
ceived.  He  rarely  referred  to  this  style  of  book,  but 
when  he  did  it  was  with  curt  condemnation.  The 
Lancet,  a  newspaper  whose  praise  is  worth  having,  in 
the  article  just  now  quoted,  further  says  :  — 

"  Si  sic  omnes  !  For  the  public  nowadays  is  suf 
fering  from  a  surfeit  of  medicine  in  its  literature. 
Heredity  and  the  transmission  of  physiological  or 
psychological  taints;  sexual  problems;  problems  in 
mental  pathology,  form  the  essence  of  the  work  of  a 
large  school  of  writers.  Sometimes  the  work  is  well 
done  and  sometimes  extremely  ill  done.  Now  and 
again  the  great  romancer  will  by  a  few  illuminating 
words  supply  a  real  contribution  to  the  scientific  side 
of  psychology ;  more  often  we  are  asked  to  solace  our 
selves  after  the  day's  work  with  long-drawn  questions 
pruriently  put  and  left  unanswered  by  a  string  of  pom 
pous  deductions.  And  so  we  say :  Ah,  if  all  were 
like  the  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast-Table!  Would 
that  all  our  advanced  novelists  would  recognize,  first, 


OCCUPATIONS  :  METHODS  OF  WORK      31 

that  it  is  necessary  to  know  before  instructing  and  to 
see  before  leading,  if  the  ditch  is  to  be  avoided ;  and, 
second,  that  there  is  wisdom  in  restraint  and  an  art 
in  remaining  silent,  —  that  furibund  descriptions  of 
animalism,  if  accurate,  are  inappropriate  in  general 
literature,  and  that  to  display  to  common  gaze  a  dissec 
tion  of  the  morbid  imaginings  of  the  sick  mind  may 
be  an  act  of  positive  indecency.  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes  was  a  man  who  knew.  Whither  he  would 
lead,  his  readers  might  always  be  content  to  follow 
without  fear  of  the  ditch.  His  science  was  sound,  his 
wisdom  indubitable,  and  his  powers  of  observation 
and  introspection  were  of  the  acutest.  And  how  did 
he  use  them?  Not  by  shirking  the  responsibilities 
laid  upon  him  by  his  possession  of  exceptional  know 
ledge,  as  great  men  have  done  before  now  through 
fear  of  giving  offence;  on  the  contrary,  his  whole 
work  is  pervaded  by  his  particular  learning.  And 
not  by  persistently  presenting  to  the  mental  eye  the 
dissected  body  or  the  sick  soul,  the  charnel-house,  the 
bordel,  or  the  asylum ;  on  the  contrary,  his  multifa 
rious  writings  are  absolutely  free  from  the  taint  of 
nastiness.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  used  his  beautiful 
endowments  in  the  highest  way  for  the  good  of  all, 
neither  burying  his  talents  nor  prostituting  them.  He 
was  removed  by  a  lovable,  modest,  sympathetic  nature 
from  all  possibility  of  writing  the  harmful;  he  was 
removed  by  a  true  and  highly  cultivated  artistic  sense 
from  the  common  error  of  spoiling  a  picture  by  over 
loading  it  with  unnecessary  details  ;  lastly,  and  chiefly, 
he  was  removed  by  his  assured  place  as  a  man  of 
scientific  education,  undoubted  learning,  and  equally 
undoubted  literary  genius  from  all  temptation  to  medi 
cal  or  linguistic  display.  From  this  position,  with  the 


32  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

conscientiousness  of  the  skilled  workman  and  the 
unpremeditated  charm  of  the  poet,  he  poured  out 
broad  lessons  of  human  sympathy  and  preached  a 
genial,  yet  shrewd,  gospel  of  kindliness." 

"It  is  a  good  rule,"  wrote  the  Doctor,  "for  the 
actor  who  manages  the  popular  street  drama  of  Punch 
not  to  let  the  audience  or  spectators  see  his  legs." 
But  he  could  not  follow  his  own  rule ;  in  point  of 
fact  probably  no  writer  ever  exposed  his  legs  more 
audaciously,  untiringly,  than  did  the  good  Doctor. 
The  (London)  Spectator  said,  after  his  death :  "  Dr. 
Holmes  is  almost  the  only  man  in  modern  literature 
in  whom  the  work  and  its  author  cannot  be  separated, 
and  the  personality,  like  the  work,  stirs  an  emotion 
of  warm  and  lasting  friendship."  "  None  reveals  his 
personal  temperament  more  clearly,"  said  George 
William  Curtis;  and  an  hundred  writers  have  said 
the  same  thing  in  their  respective  ways.  It  was  not 
possible,  of  course,  that  the  observant  Doctor  himself 
should  be  ignorant  of  the  truth.  Hark  to  his  words :  — 

What  have  I  rescued  from  the  shelf  ? 
A  Boswell,  writing  out  himself  ! 
For  though  he  changes  dress  and  name, 
The  man  beneath  is  still  the  same, 
Laughing  or  sad,  by  fits  and  starts, 
One  actor  in  a  dozen  parts, 
And  whatsoe'er  the  mask  may  be, 
The  voice  assures  us,  This  is  he. 

And  in  The  Poet  at  the  Breakfast- Table  he  says: 
"  Liberam  animam  meam.  That  is  the  meaning  of 
my  book  and  of  my  literary  life,  if  I  may  give  such  a 
name  to  that  parti-colored  shred  of  human  existence." 

In  point  of  fact  Dr.  Holmes's  personality  poured 
through  his  books  like  a  stream  in  flood  time  through 


OCCUPATIONS  :    METHODS   OF   WORK  33 

meadows,  soaking  and  saturating  them.  He  was  in 
every  page  of  the  Breakfast-Table  Series;  he  was 
never  far  or  long  away  in  the  novels ;  he  lurked  in 
the  stanzas  of  a  large  proportion  of  the  lyrics.  In  a 
word  it  is  fair  to  say  that  he  was  omnipresent ;  that 
those  irrepressible  legs  were  always  keeping  up  their 
lively  play  before  the  spectator's  eye.  He  did  not 
work  like  the  ant,  by  manipulation,  acquisition,  and 
dealing  with  outside  materials  ;  but  he  spun  his  books 
out  of  himself,  as  a  spider  spins  his  web  from  his 
vitals.  The  man  who  can  do  this  thing  well  can  do 
the  most  popular  writing  in  literature.  He  must  be 
an  egotist ;  but  he  must  be  precisely  the  right  kind  of 
egotist,  for  if  he  is  not  so,  the  sensitive  taste  of  read 
ers  —  who  are  very  fastidious  upon  this  point  —  will 
reject  him. 

Now  Dr.  Holmes  certainly  was  an  egotist ;  not, . 
however,  in  an  offensive  sense  of  the  word.  Along 
side  of  all  his  kindliness,  his  philanthropy,  there  ran 
ever  the  deep  strong  current  of  his  own  purpose. 
Whatever  was  the  work  which  he  happened  at  any 
time  to  have  in  hand,  he  gave  himself  to  it  with  very 
great  zeal ;  his  interest  in  the  occupation  of  each  pass 
ing  hour  was  intense ;  he  was  absorbed  in  his  own 
aims,  labor,  plans,  thoughts,  ideals ;  and  he  allowed 
nothing  to  interfere  to  any  serious  extent  with  their 
development.  He  was  very  rigid  in  protecting  him 
self  against  undue  interruptions.  To  an  endless 
stream  of  bores,  who  encroached  upon  his  time,  he 
was  singularly  courteous;  and  yet  all  the  while  he 
was  cautious  and  watchful ;  he  could  afford  to  give 
these  people  about  so  many  hours ;  when  that  allow 
ance  had  been  devoured,  the  portcullis  fell,  sharply, 
relentlessly,  and  there  was  no  more  trespassing,  no 

VOL.  II. 


34  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

more  time-filching  that  day.  Of  course  this  was  ab 
solutely  necessary,  for  the  visiting  stream  would  have 
risen  to  the  proportions  of  a  drowning  torrent,  had  it 
not  been  cautiously  kept  under  control,  —  a  task  in 
which  his  wife  was  of  infinite,  untiring  service  to  him. 
There  is  a  story  —  just  how  it  may  be  mingled  of 
truth  and  jest  I  do  not  undertake  to  say  —  that  he 
kept  on  hand  a  little  pile  of  autograph  extracts  from 
his  writings,  and  that  when  the  visitor  had  reached  the 
extreme  limit  of  a  call,  yet  seemed  unaware  of  the 
fact,  the  Doctor  would  kindly  hand  him  one  of  these 
extracts,  courteously  asking  him  to  take  it  as  a  keep 
sake.  "  They  can't  stop  after  that,  however  tough," 
he  said.  "  I  call  the  extracts  my  lubricant ;  it  greases 
the  way  to  send  them  off." 

Of  these  invaders  some  had  a  good  right  to  come ; 
others  came  to  see  a  great  man,  and  others  came  to 
let  the  great  man  see  them.  As  a  cat  may  look  at  a 
king,  so  an  ass  may  look  at  a  lion,  —  and  there  came 
a  great  number  of  the  more  ignoble  animal.  Some 
hunters  also  desired  to  entrap  this  lion  for  their 
own  uses  and  purposes,  and  in  order  to  propitiate  the 
beast,  they  for  the  most  part  offered  him  the  sweet 
titbits  of  flattery.  The  amount  of  this  sort  of  food 
that  was  stuffed  down  his  throat  in  the  last  forty 
years  of  his  life  would  have  been  fatal  to  any  digestion 
which  has  ever  been  created.  He  understood  his 
danger  well,  and  wrote  of  it :  "  So  far  as  one's 
vanity  is  concerned  it  is  well  enough.  But  self-love  is 
a  cup  without  any  bottom,  and  you  might  pour  the 
Great  Lakes  all  through  it,  and  never  fill  it  up.  It 
breeds  an  appetite  for  more  of  the  same  kind.  It 
tends  to  make  the  celebrity  a  mere  lump  of  egotism. 
It  generates  a  craving  for  high-seasoned  personalities, 


OCCUPATIONS:  METHODS  OF  WOKK    35 

which  is  in  danger  of  becoming  slavery,  like  that  fol 
lowing  the  abuse  of  alcohol,  or  opium,  or  tobacco. 
Think  of  a  man's  having  every  day,  by  every  post, 
letters  that  tell  him  he  is  this  and  that  and  the  other, 
with  epithets  and  endearments,  one  tenth  part  of 
which  would  have  made  him  blush  red-hot  before  he 
began  to  be  what  you  call  a  celebrity !  "  In  time  the 
diet  had  its  influence  upon  the  Doctor.  In  his  old 
age  many  people  said  that  he  was  vain,  and  they  spoke 
not  altogether  without  truth.  Old  age  of  course  is 
egotistical,  perforce ;  the  old  man,  stripped  of  his 
comrades,  unable  to  share  in  current  activities,  is 
thrust  back  by  the  violence  of  unkindly  circumstances 
upon  the  memory  of  those  past  incidents  quorum 
magna  pars  fait.  It  may  be  admitted  that  egotism 
and  vanity  found  in  Dr.  Holmes's  nature  a  soil  suffi 
ciently  congenial  to  nourish  them  to  tolerably  fair 
growth  in  his  declining  years ;  but  if  there  be  a  grain 
of  truth  in  this,  at  least  it  is  also  true  that  the  traits 
appeared  in  their  amiable  and  attractive  form,  and 
that  he  was  so  simple,  frank,  honest,  in  his  enjoyment 
of  the  good  opinion  of  others,  that  every  one  was 
cordially  glad  to  give  the  kind  old  man  the  harmless 
gratification  of  praise.  I  quote  Colonel  Lee  again,  the 
best  of  authorities :  "  He  has  been  called  vain,  by 
himself  and  others ;  but  it  was  vanity  of  an  amiable 
and  childlike  kind,  —  confessed,  and  so  apologized 
for ;  not  denied  or  disguised  or  justified.  It  was  not 
made  offensive  by  superciliousness,  nor  contemptible 
by  unmanliness,  nor  malignant  by  envy.  Had  he 
visited  Rotten  Row,  and  gazed  at  the  well-born,  well- 
dressed,  well-mounted  equestrians,  he  would  have  ex 
ulted  over  their  bright  array,  and  not  have  growled 
out,  as  Carlyle  did,  '  There  is  not  one  of  them  can 
do  what  I  can  do.'" 


36  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

Yet,  after  all,  who  can  be  better  quoted  than  the 
Doctor  himself  ?  His  books  and  his  letters  contain 
many  scores  of  passages  wherein  he  says  in  his  light, 
humorous,  outspoken  way,  with  the  twinkle  in  the  eye, 
and  the  twitch  at  the  mouth,  that  the  flavor  of  flat 
tery  offends  not  his  palate.  He  assured  his  friend 
Mr.  Appleton  :  "  I  was  always  patient  with  those  who 
thought  well  of  me,  and  accepted  all  their  tributes 
with  something  more  than  resignation."  He  thanked 
Mr.  May  for  sending  him  the  Standard :  "  Its  praise 
is  extravagant,  so  far  as  my  poem  is  concerned,  but 
I  have  always  been  struck  with  the  fact  that  a  man 
bears  superlatives  about  his  own  productions  with 
wonderful  fortitude."  The  Autocrat  says  :  "  I  purr 
very  loud  over  a  good,  honest  letter  that  says  pretty 
things  to  me."  And  again  :  "  Non  omnis  moriar  is 
a  pleasant  thought  to  one  who  has  loved  his  poor 
little  planet,  and  will,  I  trust,  retain  kindly  recollec 
tions  of  it  through  whatever  wilderness  of  worlds  he 
may  be  called  to  wander  in  his  future  pilgrimages." 
There  is  such  a  fragrance  of  humanity  and  fellowship 
about  this  passage,  that  any  one  would  wish  to  min 
ister  pleasant  words  to  him  who  wrote  it.  In  truth 
the  Doctor's  vanity  was  of  the  sympathetic  variety ; 
it  did  not  seek,  and  was  not  to  be  put  off  with,  mere 
intellectual  appreciation.  He  did  not  crave  admiration 
so  much  as  a  genial  community  of  feeling.  He  did  not 
so  much  desire  that  you  should  laugh  at  his  witticism 
as  that  you  should  join  him  in  laughing  at  it ;  or,  if 
there  was  satire,  the  twinkle  in  your  eye  must  be  the 
return  flash  for  that  which  parted  from  his  own  ;  and 
if  his  sentiment  called  forth  your  tear,  he  valued  it  as 
a  companion  drop  with  his.  Who  could  fail  to  feel 
kindly  to  a  vanity  of  this  sort  ?  It  was  in  perfect 


OCCUPATIONS  I     METHODS    OF   WORK  37 

accord  with  the  Doctor's  nature.  In  fact  he  had  a 
kind  of  right  to  it.  He  had  always  shown  kindliness 
and  sympathy  towards  all  the  rest  of  mankind.  Was 
he  called  upon  to  rule  out  himself  alone  from  the 
benefit  of  his  admirable  traits ;  and  must  he  do  this 
only  in  order  to  respect  a  foolish  modern  prejudice 
against  egotism  ?  The  requirement  would  have  been 
indeed  unreasonable ! 

Beneath  the  superficial  gratification  which  he  gath 
ered  from  flattering  words,  he  kept  his  cool  obser 
vation  and  accurate  measurement  of  facts.  What 
he  said  in  The  Poet  at  the  Breakfast- Table  put  the 
truth  very  well :  "  He  looked  pleased.  All  philoso 
phers  look  pleased  when  people  say  to  them  virtu 
ally,  '  Ye  are  gods.'  The  Master  says  he  is  vain  con 
stitutionally,  and  thanks  God  that  he  is.  I  don't 
think  he  has  enough  vanity  to  make  a  fool  of  himself 
with  it,  but  the  simple  truth  is  he  cannot  help  know 
ing  that  he  has  a  wide  and  lively  intelligence,  and  it 
pleases  him  to  know  it,  and  to  be  reminded  of  it,  espe 
cially  in  an  oblique  and  tangential  sort  of  way,  so  as 
not  to  look  like  downright  flattery." 

This  letter  is  not  altogether  inapropos,  at  this 
point :  — 

TO   SAMUEL   WILKS,  M.    D.,    GROSVENOR   STREET,    LONDON. 

July  10,  1875. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  have  kept  your  letter  as  we 
leave  a  Bon  Chretien  or  a  Kare-ripe — I  hope  you 
have  that  pear  and  peach  —  to  mellow  a  little  on  my 
table,  before  saying  these  few  words  to  let  you  know 
how  much  pleasure  it  has  given  me.  I  do  not  say 
that  I  have  never  had  words  as  flattering  to  my  self- 
love  as  yours  ;  but  I  cannot  have  often  had  such  words 


38  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

from  any  whose  good  opinion  I  should  value  so  highly. 
For  in  the  mean  time,  while  my  transatlantic  fruit 
was  ripening,  I  have  read  the  four  pamphlets  you  have 
kindly  sent  me,  and  found  the  reason  why  you  were  at 
home  in  my  pages,  —  because  the  very  qualities  which 
you  managed  to  find  in  them  were  already  in  your 
own  intelligence,  because  your  gamut  of  sensibilities 
was  as  wide  in  its  extent  as  you  were  pleased  to  think 
my  own.  You  speak  so  frankly,  I  must  tell  one  or 
two  of  my  own  secrets.  I  do  not  know  what  to 
make  of  it  sometimes  when  I  receive  a  letter,  it  may 
be  from  Oregon  or  Omaha,  from  England  or  Austra 
lia,  telling  me  that  I  have  unlocked  the  secret  cham 
ber  of  some  heart  which  others,  infinitely  more  famous, 
infinitely  more  entitled  to  claim  the  freedom,  have 
failed  to  find  opening  for  them.  This  has  happened 
to  me  so  often,  from  so  many  different  persons,  men 
and  women,  young  and  old,  that  I  cannot  help  believ 
ing  there  is  some  human  tone  in  my  written  voice 
which  sometimes  finds  a  chord  not  often  set  vibrating. 
My  mode  of  life  is  rather  solitary  than  social,  though 
I  have  contributed  my  share  of  hilarity  to  scores  of 
festivals,  and  am  almost  entitled  to  be  called  the  lau 
reate  of  our  local  receptions  of  great  personages,  from 
Prince  Albert  Edward  downward.  I  have  long  ceased 
to  practice,  but  keep  my  professorship  in  the  Medical 
School  of  Harvard  University,  which  occupies  and 
amuses  me  for  seven  months  of  the  year.  I  go  to  a 
dinner-party  once  in  a  while,  and  once  a  month  to  the 
Saturday  Club,  where  I  meet  Emerson,  Longfellow, 
Lowell,  and  in  other  years  used  to  meet  Agassiz,  Sum- 
ner,  Motley,  Hawthorne,  and  many  others  of  more  or 
less  name  and  note.  But  I  live  quietly  with  my  wife, 
by  choice.  My  children  (three)  are  all  married,  and 


OCCUPATIONS  I  METHODS  OF  WORK      39 

I  find  my  contemporaries  getting  old.  But  I  find  my 
sympathies  not  less  active  because  I  live  a  good  deal 
out  of  the  busy  world,  and  because  I  find  myself  so 
much  at  home  among  what  are  called  elderly  people, 
not  of  course  recognizing  myself  as  one  of  them.  I 
suppose  that  is  the  reason  I  have  made  so  many 
friends.  But  I  am  also  willing  to  take  credit  for  cer 
tain  intellectual  qualities,  which  you  estimate  at  their 
full  value  at  least ;  and  this  gives  your  letter  a  special 
significance,  for  I  have  read  the  four  pamphlets  you 
have  sent  me,  and  found  so  much  in  them  that  was  in 
harmony  with  my  own  way  of  thinking,  and  so  much, 
that  was  your  own,  of  good  sense  and  of  ingenious 
observation,  that  your  praise  means  a  great  deal  to 
me.  I  feel  very  grateful  to  you  for  having  the  cour 
age,  I  might  almost  call  it,  to  say  in  good  honest 
English  what  you  felt  about  my  books  and  myself.  It 
is  the  best  reward  of  authorship  to  be  greeted  in  terms 
of  friendship,  nay  something  like  affection,  by  those 
whose  own  words  have  cheered,  comforted,  consoled, 
strengthened,  stimulated,  if  not  instructed.  I  thank 
you  from  my  heart  for  your  most  grateful  letter. 

Dr.  Holmes  was  upon  the  whole  very  fortunate  in 
escaping  any  severe  criticism,  —  for,  of  course,  opposi 
tion  to  his  views,  religious  or  other,  could  not  be  called 
criticism.  He  himself  said  some  unkind  things  of  the 
critics  ;  e.  g.,  "  What  a  blessed  thing  it  is  that  Nature, 
when  she  invented,  manufactured,  and  patented  her 
authors,  contrived  to  make  critics  out  of  the  chips 
that  were  left."  But,  strange  to  say,  these  gentlemen 
did  not  retaliate ;  perhaps  they  felt  that  they  would 
meet  too  little  sympathy  in  any  severe  handling  of  an 
author  who  was  more  than  popular,  who  was  really 


40  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

beloved,  and  who  had  the  happy  knack  of  uttering 
satire  without  giving  offence.  So  in  prudence,  or 
kindness,  or  both,  they  generally  gave  him  only  fair 
words.  The  Nation  once  made  a  savage  onslaught 
upon  him,  and  succeeded  in  penetrating  his  philoso 
phy  and  hurting  his  feelings.  It  was  a  triumph  which 
was  won,  I  think,  only  on  this  single  occasion.  But 
whether  wounded  or  not,  whether  misrepresented  or 
not,  he  had  the  good  sense  to  avoid  controversy.  "  If 
a  fellow  attacked  my  opinions  in  print,  would  I  re 
ply?"  asks  the  Autocrat.  "Not  I.  Do  you  think 
I  don't  understand  what  my  friend,  the  Professor, 
long  ago  called  the  hydrostatic  paradox  of  contro 
versy  ?  "  —  which  enigmatic  phrase  he  explained  thus : 
"  If  you  had  a  bent  tube,  one  arm  of  which  was  the 
size  of  a  pipe-stem  and  the  other  big  enough  to  hold 
the  ocean,  water  would  stand  at  the  same  height  in 
one  as  in  the  other.  Thus  discussion  equalizes  fools 
and  wise  men  in  the  same  way,  and  the  fools  know 
it." 

Probably  the  "  literary  filter,"  referred  to  in  the 
following  letter,  was  not  a  perfect  disinfectant ;  but  it 
is  certain  that  the  principle  laid  down  generally  con 
trolled  the  Doctor's  action. 

April  28,  1859. 

MY  DEAK  SIR,  —  I  owe  you  many  thanks  for  your 
kind  and  thoughtful  note.  I  understand  the  article 
appeared,  that  it  was  well  written,  that  it  applied  the 
usual  terms  to  me,  and  so  forth.  I  not  only  do  not 
intend  answering  this  or  any  other  attack,  but  I  do 
not  mean  to  read  one  of  them.  If  what  I  say  cannot 
hold  water,  I  am  not  going  to  stop  the  hole  with  "  soft 
sawder."  As  I  write  from  my  convictions,  after 


OCCUPATIONS  I  METHODS  OF  WORK      41 

ample  opportunity  of  seeing  the  utter  hollowness  of 
all  the  pretensions  to  the  exclusive  possession  of  truth 
and  goodness  by  the  people  who  claim  to  be  our 
spiritual  dictators,  I  shall  not  trouble  myself  whether 
they  like  it  or  not.  If  something  did  not  pinch,  there 
would  be  no  squeak. 

I  received  this  morning  two  letters  from  distant 
places  expressing  the  greatest  delight  and  sympathy, 
and  I  feel  sure  that  there  are  good  people  enough  to 
rally  round  every  honest  speaker,  and  see  that  he  is 
not  lynched  for  exercising  the  great  inalienable  right 
of  every  soul  born  into  the  world.  I  have  a  private 
committee  of  friends,  to  whom  I  have  assigned  the 
duty  of  reading  all  attacks  on  me  and  my  doctrines. 
I  sometimes  ask  them  whether  these  attacks  are  clever 
or  dull,  what  they  take  hold  of,  if  they  use  epithets, 
and  so  on,  and  caution  them  to  keep  the  papers  out  of 
my  way.  This  patent  literary  filter  of  mine  is  a  great 
convenience,  it  saves  my  temper,  and  allows  my  best 
friends  to  attack  me  as  much  as  they  like  without  my 
having  to  be  aware  of  it ;  so  that  while  my  assailant 
thinks  I  am  busy  with  his  article  I  have  forgotten  my 
own  even,  and  am  busy  on  next  month.  Be  sure  that 
your  expression  of  interest  was  very  welcome,  all  the 
more  so  for  knowing  what  hard  things  some  others 
would  be  saying.  I  could  not  help  answering  [?], 
notwithstanding  your  plenary  indulgence  and  uncon 
ditional  absolution. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
RESIGNS    PROFESSORSHIP:    LIVES  OF   MOTLEY   AND 

EMERSON 

THE  Doctor  glided  gently  and  imperceptibly  into 
the  period  of  old  age.  He  came  to  it  in  excellent 
condition  both  of  mind  and  body,  for  he  had  led  a 
well-regulated  life.  He  could  tell  of  himself  the  tale 
of  Adam  in  "  As  You  Like  It."  Wine,  tobacco,  and 
late  hours  had  never  impaired  his  vigor,  and  as  he 
had  grown  older  he  had  grown  always  more  abstemi 
ous.  He  had  been  hard-working,  but  never  really 
overworked,  and  he  had  never  taken  either  work  or 
play  nervously  and  tensely.  Above  all,  he  had  been 
but  little  preyed  upon  by  anxieties ;  in  the  middle 
path  between  poverty  and  riches,  he  had  probably 
moved  along  that  road  which  really  gives  the  most 
generous  measure  of  content  and  comfort.  He  had 
strolled  pleasantly  and  at  his  own  pace  along  the  side 
paths,  by  the  enchanting  hedgerows,  quite  apart  from 
the  hurly-burly  of  the  highway  where  the  throng 
hurried  and  jostled  along,  the  millionnaires  and  the 
beggars  crowding,  hustling,  and  cursing  each  other. 
Thus  leaving  this  procession,  which  could  find  no  lei 
sure  for  enjoyment,  to  push  and  tumble  along  as  best 
it  might,  he  meantime  advanced  pleasantly,  falling  in 
now  and  again  with  good  company,  moving  through 
the  changing  shade  or  sunshine,  enjoying  all  the  pos 
sible  beauty  and  peacefulness  of  the  journey  through 


RESIGNS  HIS  PROFESSORSHIP  43 

life.  In  this  way,  by  degrees,  lie  became  old,  and 
hardly  knew  it  —  would  have  forgotten  it  for  a  long 
while,  perhaps,  had  he  been  a  less  close  observer  of 
facts,  or  if  others  had  not  called  his  attention  to  the 
climbing  figures  of  the  anniversaries. 

On  December  3,  1879,  there  took  place  in  Boston 
a  redoubtable  feast,  not  so  much  a  merry-making  as 
a  stupendous  compliment.  It  was  given  by  the  pub 
lishers  of  The  Atlantic  Monthly  in  honor  of  the  con 
tributor  who,  more  than  any  other  one  man,  had  caused 
its  prosperity,  who  had  been  to  it  the  life-blood  racing 
through  its  veins.  The  celebration  took  place,  as  the 
lawyers  say,  "nuncpro  tune"  on  December  3d,  as  afore 
said,  but  "  as  of  "  August  29th  next  preceding ;  for 
on  that  summer's  day,  unseasonably  placed  for  social 
gatherings,  Dr.  Holmes  had  reached  the  scriptural 
limit  of  life.  It  was  a  very  brilliant  affair,  and  truly 
famous,  that  Atlantic  Breakfast ;  every  one  of  any 
account  in  literature  either  came  to  it,  or  regretted  in 
becoming  phrase  that  he  could  not  come.  There  were 
poems  and  speeches,  and  really,  though  such  things 
are  apt  to  be  a  trifle  stilted  and  artificial,  this  was  a 
handsome  success.  Mr.  Howells  had  been  asked  to 
sit  at  the  end  of  the  banqueting-table  opposite  Dr. 
Holmes,  and  the  Doctor  afterward  wrote  to  him  the 
following  note :  — 

TO   WILLIAM   DEAN   HOWELLS. 

December  14,  1879. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  HOWELLS,  —  I  have  never  said  a 
word  to  you  about  our  Breakfast,  which  you  con 
ducted  so  admirably.  It  hardly  seemed  necessary, 
where  everybody  agreed  as  to  your  share  of  it,  that 
any  one  should  tell  you  what  you  must  know  so  well. 


44  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

You  showed,  I  thought,  great  tact,  and  savoir  dire 
and  faire  in  your  management  of  the  south  pole  of 
the  festival.  Of  course  I  was  pleased  —  how  could  I 
help  being  pleased  —  with  the  penetrating  and  nicely 
accented  praise  you  awarded  me.  We  know  the  dif 
ference  between  a  smudge  of  eulogy  and  a  stroke  of 
characterization.  Even  in  putting  the  holiday  dress 
of  adjectives  on  the  person  who  is  asked  to  come  and 
hear  himself  canonized,  there  is  all  the  difference  in 
the  world  between  those  who  know  how  to  make  it  fit 
without  pinching  or  bagging,  and  the  kind,  well-mean 
ing  friends  who  think,  if  they  only  take  cloth  enough 
and  dictionary-spangles  enough,  though  "  the  garment 
of  praise  hides  all  your  points  and  betrays  all  your 
malformations,"  they  have  done  all  that  a  demigod 
could  ask  for.  In  return,  I  must  congratulate  you  on 
the  brilliant  and  commanding  position  you  have  fairly 
won  for  yourself.  You  have  brought  us  an  outside 
element  which  Boston  needed,  and  have  assimilated 
all  that  Boston  could  do  for  you  (if  you  can  be  said 
to  have  needed  anything)  so  completely  that  it  seems 
as  if  you  had  cheated  some  native  Esau  out  of  his 
birthright. 

I  hope  you  will  live  to  see  your  septuagenarian 
breakfast  and  many  a  breakfast  on  the  other  side  of  it, 
not  only  famous,  but  happy  in  all  that  surrounds  you. 

Perhaps  some  such  extreme  measure  as  this  celebra 
tion  was  necessary  in  order  to  impress  upon  the  Doc 
tor  and  the  world  the  chronological  fact  upon  which  it 
was  based,  viz.,  that  he  was  now  at  that  age  at  which 
a  well-constructed  person  should  die,  and  of  course 
had  been  an  old  man  for  at  least  ten  years  past. 

But  what  is  more  absurd  than  truth  can  often  be  J 


RESIGNS   HIS  PROFESSORSHIP  45 

If  Scripture  and  chronology  thus  conspired  against  the 
sprightly  Doctor,  they  conspired  in  vain.  Neither  in 
body,  mind,  nor  morale,  did  this  vivacious,  genial 
gentleman,  a  comrade  for  the  young  as  for  the  old, 
seem  a  "  trespasser  upon  the  domain  belonging  to 
another  generation."  Being,  however,  an  experienced 
physician  and  an  intelligent  man,  he  knew  perfectly 
well  the  inevitable  course  of  brain  cells  and  tissues, 
and  such-like  crude  components  of  the  human  experi 
ment,  and  he  knew  that  deterioration  must  have  begun, 
and  that  the  only  question  was  as  to  the  greater  or 
less  rapidity  with  which  it  would  advance.  Upon  this 
point  he  did  not  mean  to  be  deceived ;  he  did  not  in 
tend  that  the  outside  world  should  measure  a  deca 
dence  concerning  which  he  was  not  himself  accurately 
informed ;  he  meant  to  be  on  his  guard,  and  to  have 
as  few  unpleasant  remarks  made  behind  his  back  as 
might  be.  So  he  began  to  keep  upon  himself  the  close 
and  intelligent  watch  of  the  trained  observer.  It  was 
noticed  by  those  who  knew  him  well  that  the  faculty 
for  keen  and  accurate  observation,  which  all  his  life 
long  had  been  one  of  the  most  striking  of  his  mental 
traits,  was  now  turned  in  its  full  force  upon  himself. 
If  this  was  largely  for  the  sake  of  self-knowledge  and 
self -protection,  yet  it  was  not  wholly  so ;  for  he  felt  a 
curious  interest  in  studying  old  age  from  that  only 
actual  specimen  from  which  any  man  can  be  sure 
that  he  is  studying  correctly ;  it  was  like  vivisecting 
one's  self ;  and  he  became  absorbed  in  the  process 
and  the  results.  It  was  both  a  scientific  investigation 
and  a  study  of  man. 

That  this  could  be  altogether  pleasant  can  hardly 
be  imagined  ;  but  this  memoir  has  been  very  ill-written 
if  the  reader  has  not  divined  that  with  the  kindliness 


46  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

and  humanity  of  the  Doctor's  temperament,  there 
were  linked  the  kindred  virtues  of  unconquerable 
cheerfulness  and  buoyancy,  with  the  courage  which  is 
the  natural  comrade  of  these  traits.  It  was  not  with 
grimness  of  spirit  that  he  faced  the  advance  of  Time, 
as  one  resolved  to  do  battle  ;  his  geniality  did  not 
grow  out  of  a  strenuous  effort  of  the  will  ;  he  only 
aided  the  liveliness  and  optimism  of  his  amiable  na 
ture  by  a  cool  resolution  ;  and  his  philosophy  was  not 
defiant,  but  serene. 

In  this  way  for  fifteen  years  more  he  continued  not 
only  uniformly  cheerful,  but  much  of  the  time  light- 
hearted  and  even  merry.  He  had  not  very  long  before 
described  himself,  with  his  clear  self-knowledge,  in  a 
letter  to  Motley  :  — 

"How  strangely  —  with  what  curious  suggestions 
and  reminiscences,  your  Shelley  neighborhood  experi 
ences  come  over  me  !  I  have  always  kept  in  my  mem 
ory  those  l  Lines  written  in  dejection  near  Naples,'  or 
some  of  them,  from  which  I  think  you  quote.  I  have 
said  a  thousand  times  (I  trust  my  memory  now)  :  — 

I  could  lie  down  like  a  tired  child 

And  weep  away  this  life  of  care 

Which  I  have  borne,  and  still  must  bear, 

and  the  rest.  But  it  was  as  a  mood,  and  not  as  an 
habitual  or  very  real  feeling,  for  my  temperament  is 
too  lively  to  be  kept  down  long  by  the  common  bur 
dens  of  this  life  of  care.  My  spirits  have,  I  think, 
grown  more  equable,  and  I  am  sure  my  temper  has 
grown  easier  with  years.  But  there  I  go  again 


'O  5e 

*  Egomet  '  P.OVVOV  t\xfl' 


I  hope  my  Greek  letters  are  right,  —  you  may  put  in 


RESIGNS   HIS  PROFESSORSHIP  47 

accents  and  aspirates  to  suit  yourself,  as  Lord  Timothy 
Dexter  told  his  readers  to  do  with  their  stops." 

He  declared  that  he  had  a  "  right  to  rest  after  a 
life  which  had  been  tolerably  laborious ; "  yet  it  was 
obviously  his  intention  to  curtail  his  work  no  faster 
than  the  gradual  shrinkage  of  his  faculties  should 
make  desirable.  It  was  natural  that  the  first  lopping 
off  should  be  the  lectures  at  the  Medical  School.  Ac 
cordingly,  on  October  9,  1882,  we  find  him  intimating 
to  Dr.  Weir  Mitchell  his  purpose  in  this  direction : 
"  I  have  not  told  you  that  I  am  very  soon  to  resign  my 
professorship.  I  have  been  thinking  of  it  for  some 
time,  and  very  lately  received  a  proposal  from  my 
publishers  so  tempting  that  I  could  not  resist  it.  I 
hold  on  for  a  couple  of  months  to  give  the  Faculty 
and  the  Corporation  of  the  University  time  to  look 
round  for  some  one  to  complete  the  course  I  have 
begun.  Thirty-five  years  here  —  this  is  my  thirty- 
sixth  course  —  two  years  Professor  at  Dartmouth  — 
that  is  long  enough,  isn't  it?  They  say  they  don't 
want  me  to  give  up,  but  I  had  rather  spend  whatever 
days  are  left  me  in  literary  pursuits.  So  I  expect  to 
start  the  scimetar l  through  a  good  many  volumes  of 
prose  and  verse  —  yours,  I  hope,  among  the  earliest." 
And  to  Dr.  Fordyce  Barker :  "I  am  glad  to  look  for 
ward  to  rest  from  my  official  duties  as  professor.  I 
say  look  forward,  for  they  want  me  to  lecture  a  little 
longer,  at  any  rate,  and  I  shall  hold  on  until  about 
Thanksgiving  time.  I  should  have  liked,  on  some 
accounts,  to  lecture  two  or  three  years  longer.  We 
have  a  grand  new  College  building  about  five  minutes' 
walk  from  my  house.  My  colleagues  do  not  seem  to 

1  The  paper-cutter,  which  we  have  already  heard  of,  ante, 
p.  352. 


48  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

be  tired  of  me,  and  my  duties  have  been  made  moat 
agreeable  to  me  in  every  respect.  But  I.  found  I 
could  make  a  very  advantageous  arrangement  with  my 
publishers,  and  I  accepted  the  opening  \vhirh  pre 
sented  itself  rather  suddenly,  just  as  our  winter  course 
was  about  to  begin.  I  shall  have  a  freedom  I  shall 
be  glad  of,  and  shall  write  when  I  feel  disposed,— 
which,  I  think,  will  be  pretty  often  when  1  have  no 
routine  duties  to  keep  up  a  steady  drain  on  my  vital 
resources." 

On  November  28,  1882,  he  delivered  his  Farewell 
Address  to  the  Medical  School.  "  I  have  delivered 
my  last  anatomical  lecture,"  he  said,  "  and  heard  my 
class  recite  for  the  last  time."  He  gave  something 
like  an  apology  for  having  held  his  office  so  long,  as 
though  there  might  be  some  danger  or  suspicion  that 
Science  had  advanced  faster  than  an  old  man  could 
keep  pace  with  her :  "  But  while  many  of  the  sci 
ences  have  so  changed  that  the  teachers  of  the  past 
would  hardly  know  them,  it  has  not  been  so  with  the 
branch  I  teach ;  or,  rather,  with  that  division  of  it 
which  is  chiefly  taught  in  this  amphitheatre.  General 
anatomy,  or  histology,  on  the  other  hand,  is  almost  all 
new ;  it  has  grown  up,  mainly,  since  I  began  my  med 
ical  studies.  ...  If  I  myself  needed  an  apology  for 
holding  my  office  so  long,  I  should  find  it  in  the  fact 
that  human  anatomy  is  much  the  same  study  that  it 
was  in  the  days  of  Vesalius  and  Fallopius,  and  that  a 
greater  part  of  my  teaching  was  of  such  a  nature  that 
it  could  never  become  antiquated. 

He  closed  thus :  "  Let  me  add  a  few  words  which 
shall  not  be  other  than  i-luvrt'ul,  as  1  bid  farewell  to 
this  edifice  which  1  ha\v  known  so  long.  I  am  grate 
ful  to  the  root'  wh'u-h  has  shelti'ivd  uu\  to  the  floors 


RESIGNS   HIS  PROFESSORSHIP  49 

which  have  sustained  me,  though  I  have  thought  it 
safest  always  to  abstain  from  anything  like  eloquence, 
lest  a  burst  of  too  emphatic  applause  might  land  my 
class  and  myself  in  the  cellar  of  the  collapsing  struc 
ture,  and  bury  us  in  the  fate  of  Korah,  Dathan,  and 
Abiram.  I  have  helped  to  wear  these  stairs  into  hol 
lows,  —  stairs  which  I  trod  when  they  were  smooth 
and  level,  fresh  from  the  plane.  There  are  just  thirty- 
two  of  them,  as  there  were  five  and  thirty  years  ago, 
but  they  are  steeper  and  harder  to  climb,  it  seems  to 
me,  than  they  were  then.  I  remember  that  in  the  early 
youth  of  this  building,  the  late  Dr.  John  K.  Mitchell, 
father  of  our  famous  Dr.  Weir  Mitchell,  said  to  me, 
as  we  came  out  of  the  demonstrator's  room,  that  some 
day  or  other  a  whole  class  would  go  heels  over  head 
down  this  graded  precipice,  like  the  herd  told  of  in 
Scripture  story.  This  has  never  happened  as  yet ;  I 
trust  it  never  will.  I  have  never  been  proud  of  the 
apartment  beneath  the  seats,  in  which  my  prepara 
tions  for  lecture  were  made.  But  I  chose  it  because 
I  could  have  it  to  myself,  and  I  resign  it,  with  a  wish 
that  it  were  more  worthy  of  regret,  into  the  hands  of 
my  successor,  with  my  parting  benediction.  Within 
its  twilight  precincts  I  have  often  prayed  for  light, 
like  Ajax,  for  the  daylight  found  scanty  entrance,  and 
the  gaslight  never  illuminated  its  dark  recesses.  May 
it  prove  to  him  who  comes  after  me  like  the  cave  of 
the  Sibyl,  out  of  the  gloomy  depths  of  which  came 
the  oracles  which  shone  with  the  rays  of  truth  and 
wisdom ! " 

The  students  presented  him  with  a  silver  loving- 
cup,  an  appropriate  gift ;  for  if  later  classes  might 
have  teachers  equally  efficient,  no  one  else  was  likely 
to  inspire  such  personal  affection  as  had  been  felt  for 

VOL.  n. 


50  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

Dr.  Holmes.  He  had  not  been  forewarned  of  this, 
and  being  taken  unawares  was  near  to  being  overcome 
by  a  sentiment  which  it  was  inevitable  that  he  should 
feel.  He  would  not  try  at  the  moment  to  utter  his 
thanks  in  words,  but  wrote  afterward :  — 

"  This  gift,  of  priceless  value  to  me  and  to  those 
who  come  after  me,  will  meet  another  and  similar  one 
of  ancient  date,  which  has  come  down  to  me  as  an 
heirloom  in  the  fifth  generation  from  its  original 
owner.  The  silver  teapot,  which  serves  the  temperate 
needs  of  my  noontide  refection,  has  engraved  upon  it, 
for  armorial  bearings,  three  nodules,  supposed  to  rep 
resent  the  mineral  suggesting  the  name  of  the  recip 
ient,  the  three  words,  Ex  Dono  Pupillorum^  and  the 
date  1738.  This  piece  of  silver  was  given  by  his  Har 
vard  College  pupils  to  the  famous  tutor,  Henry  Flynt, 
whose  term  of  service,  fifty-five  years,  is  the  longest 
on  the  college  record.  Tutor  Flynt  was  a  bachelor, 
and  this  memorial  gift  passed  after  his  death  to  his 
niece,  Dorothy  Quincy,  who  did  me  the  high  honor  of 
becoming  my  great-grandmother.  Through  her  daugh 
ter  and  her  daughter's  daughter  it  came  down  to  me, 
and  has  always  been  held  by  me  as  the  most  loved 
and  venerated  relic  which  time  has  bequeathed  me. 
It  will  never  lose  its  hold  on  my  affections,  for  it  is 
a  part  of  my  earliest  associations  and  dearest  remem 
brances. 

"  But  this  loving-cup,  which  comes  to  me  not  by  de 
scent,  but  as  a  testimony  that  my  own  life  as  a  teacher 
has  not  been  undervalued,  but  thought  deserving  of 
such  an  enduring  memorial,  must  hereafter  claim  an 
equal  place  in  my  affections  with  that  most  prized 
and  cherished  of  all  my  household  possessions.  I 
hope  that  when  another  hundred  and  fifty  years  have 


RESIGNS   HIS  PROFESSORSHIP  51 

passed  away,  some  descendant  of  mine  will  say,  as  he 
lifts  this  cup  and  reads  the  name  it  bears :  '  He,  too, 
loved  his  labor  and  those  for  whom  he  labored ; 
and  the  students  of  the  dead  nineteenth  century  re 
membered  their  old  teacher  as  kindly,  as  gracefully, 
as  generously,  as  the  youth  of  the  earlier  eighteenth 
century  remembered  old  Father  Flynt,  the  patriarch 
of  all  our  Harvard  tutors.'  " 

The  University  made  him  Professor  Emeritus. 

I  fancy  that  the  official  records  do  not  contain  a 
remark  made  by  the  Doctor  on  this  occasion,  apropos 
of  the  fact  that  when  he  began  his  labors  there  were 
six  instructors,  and  now  there  were  seventy:  "But 
it  is  not  every  animal  which  has  the  most  legs  that 
crawls  the  fastest." 

The  following  spring,  April  12,  1883,  the  members 
of  the  medical  profession  of  New  York  gave  a  grand 
dinner  at  Delmonico's  in  honor  of  Dr.  Holmes.  Mr. 
Evarts,  George  William  Curtis,  Whitelaw  Reid,  and 
others,  spoke,  and  the  Doctor  of  course  read  a  poem. 
It  was  another  very  handsome  and  flattering  compli 
ment,  —  a  golden  milestone  in  the  journey. 

One  by  one  friends  and  contemporaries,  and  the 
associates  who  had  sat  around  the  table  of  the  dearly 
loved  Saturday  Club  began  to  drop  away,  had  in  fact 
begun  long  ere  Dr.  Holmes  reached  his  seventieth 
birthday.  Agassiz  had  died  in  the  last  month  of  1873. 
In  1877  Motley  died ;  in  1882  Longfellow,  and  Emer 
son  followed.  The  Doctor  began  to  feel,  he  said,  that 
the  old  Club  was,  for  him,  a  gathering  of  ghosts. 

He  had  always  been  greatly  attracted  by  the  gentle 
ness  and  urbanity  of  Longfellow,  and  he  made  some 
remarks  about  him  at  the  meeting  of  the  Massachusetts 
Historical  Society,  and  wrote  some  verses  for  The 


52  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

Atlantic  Monthly.  "  But "  he  said,  "  it  is  all  too  little, 
for  his  life  was  so  exceptionally  sweet  and  musical 
that  any  voice  of  praise  sounds  almost  like  a  discord 
after  it ;  and  yet,  as  he  cannot  sing  his  own  requiem, 
we  must  utter  ourselves  as  nature  prompts  us  to."  x 

Of  these  departed  friends,  Dr.  Holmes  was  called 
upon  to  write  the  lives  of  two,  John  Lothrop  Motley 
and  Kalph  Waldo  Emerson. 

Mr.  Motley  died  in  May,  1877,  and  Dr.  Holmes 
wrote  the  customary  brief  memoir  for  the  Massachu 
setts  Historical  Society.  Naturally  enough,  this  was 
expanded  into  a  small  volume,  for  publication.  It 
was  fairly  supposable  that  the  Doctor  was  especially 
well  equipped  for  the  task.  The  two  men  were  nearly 
of  an  age,  —  Motley  was  born  in  April,  1814 ;  and 
though  the  five  years  of  difference  was  an  untraversa- 
ble  space  in  their  youthful  days,  afterward,  when 
maturity  had  arranged  the  perspectives  of  life,  they 
became  close  friends,  and  in  no  other  letters  does  Dr. 
Holmes  betray  such  warm  personal  feeling  as  in  those 
to  Motley.  It  may  be  said  that  he  had  fallen  prone 
beneath  the  fascination  of  the  handsome  gentleman 
and  brilliant  historian.  Therefore  when  now  he  was 
asked  to  narrate  the  career  of  his  illustrious  friend, 
the  Doctor  came  to  it  with  a  full  heart  and  an  ardent 
pen.  Yet  he  did  not  produce  an  entirely  satisfactory 
book.  Throughout,  it  is  vivid,  eloquent,  and  illumined 
with  many  charmingly  written  pages.  It  is  a  glowing, 
generous  eulogy,  an  idealized  picture  of  a  man  whose 
nature,  moral,  mental,  and  physical,  held  out  a  lure 
which  Dr.  Holmes's  temperament  was  unable  to  resist. 
What,  in  fact,  he  did  may  be  justly  expressed  in  words 
used  by  himself  upon  another  occasion:  "Bidding 
1  Note  to  Paul  H.  Hayne. 


LIFE   OF  MOTLEY  53 

the  dead  past  unbury  its  dead,  in  new  and  gracious 
aspects ;  recalling  what  was  best  in  their  features, 
and  clothing  them  in  the  embroidered  garments  of 
memory." 

He  wrote  to  Mr.  Motley's  daughter,  Lady  Harcourt, 
when  the  book  was  about  to  be  published  ;  — 

"  I  hardly  dare  to  think  that  I  have  told  the  story  of 
your  father's  life  in  a  way  to  satisfy  you,  even  as  an 
outline.  I  confess,  I  feel  as  if  no  one  could  do  it  to 
please  in  every  way,  and  to  the  full  extent,  one  who 
knew  him  so  intimately  and  loved  him  so  dearly. 
But  I  have  at  least  tried  to  do  him  justice,  and  I  feel 
sure  you  will  give  me  credit  for  having  done  my  best 
to  honor  his  memory." 

Thus  much,  at  least,  there  was  no  doubt  that  he  had 
achieved.  The  volume  was  distinctly  what  is  called 
"  a  tribute."  It  was  a  labor  of  love,  an  outpouring  and 
lavishment  of  praise ;  but  it  was  not  history,  not  even 
biography.  Undoubtedly  there  was  excuse  for  this  ; 
for,  from  the  elements  involved,  the  task  of  composi 
tion  could  hardly  have  been  more  difficult.  Twice 
Motley  had  been  in  public  life,  and  twice  had  left  it 
under  circumstances  which  were  the  more  unfortunate 
because  they  were  extremely  discreditable  to  other 
persons  whom,  otherwise,  the  nation  justly  held  in 
high  honor.  It  was  no  easy  matter  to  enter  the  laby 
rinth  of  charges,  criminations,  and  aspersions  which 
ensnarled  these  incidents,  and  the  Doctor  keenly 
appreciated  that  to  do  his  task  well  was  almost  impos 
sible.  He  wrote  anxiously  to  his  old  friend,  John  O. 
Sargent : — 


54  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

TO  JOHN   O.   SARGENT. 

February  3,  1878. 

MY  DEAR  JOHN,  —  I  am  more  obliged  to  you  than 
I  can  tell  for  your  outspoken,  intimate,  and  truly  con 
fidential  letter.  No  higher  compliment  can  be  paid 
to  one  than  to  trust  his  discretion  with  the  inside 
view  of  many  details  of  life  and  character  of  those  in 
whom  he  is  interested,  —  details  which  he  ought  to 
know,  but  many  of  which  he  ought  also  to  keep  to 
himself.  There  is  nothing  that  surprises  me  in 
what  you  say  of  our  old  friend ;  I  have  talked  and 
corresponded  with  many  of  those  who  knew  his  char 
acter  and  history  best,  and  I  was,  during  his  last 
visit  more  especially,  in  the  most  intimate  daily  rela 
tions  with  him  at  a  time  when  his  heart  opened  itself 
most  freely.  I  had,  besides,  been  almost  his  only 
regular  correspondent  in  this  country  for  some  twenty 
years  or  more.  So  I  knew  his  strong  and  weak  points 
pretty  well.  If  I  had  my  will,  I  would  never  write 
anybody's  biography  or  memoir,  for  we  all  want 
to  draw  perfect  ideals,  and  all  the  coin  that  comes 
from  Nature's  mint  is  more  or  less  clipped,  filed, 
"  sweated,"  or  bruised  and  bent  and  worn,  even  if  it 
was  pure  metal  when  stamped  —  which  is  more  than 
we  claim,  I  suppose,  for  anything  human. 

But  I  write  this  note  to  thank  you  again  and  again 
for  your  great  kindness  in  taking  so  much  pains  to 
give  me  a  true  picture  of  our  impulsive,  passionate, 
ambitious,  proud,  sensitive,  but  always  interesting 
friend.  It  is  going  to  be  a  very  delicate  business  to 
speak  of  his  diplomatic  career.  I  must  steer  between 
the  rocks  as  I  best  may. 


LIFE  OF  EMERSON  55 

When  a  man  of  note  in  literature  dies,  the  critics 
and  reviewers,  and  the  swarm  of  paragraphers  who 
write  the  little  "  notices  "  for  the  newspapers,  come 
by  their  chance,  and  are  wont  to  use  it  with  such 
discretion  and  intelligence  as  economical  Nature  has 
thought  it  worth  while  to  bestow  upon  them.  They 
contribute  to  the  cairn,  often  too  truly  by  the  casting 
of  stones,  until  the  poor  silent  form  beneath  groans 
under  their  clumsy  attentions.  What  protests  would 
not  Dr.  Holmes  have  uttered  against  those  obitu 
ary  writers  who  said  that  he  was  profoundly  influenced 
by  the  writings  of  Emerson,  and  that  the  effect  of  the 
Emersonian  philosophy  can  be  plainly  traced  through 
out  his  work !  Not  that  he  would  have  desired  to 
come  under  the  sway  of  a  nobler  teacher ;  but  he 
would  have  wished  the  truth  to  be  told,  and  the  truth 
was  that  he  never  came  beneath  any  influence  what 
soever,  either  of  any  individual  or  of  any  school. 
George  William  Curtis  truly  says  that  neither  "  the 
storm  of  agitation  nor  the  transcendental  mist  that 
.  .  .  overhung  intellectual  New  England  greatly  af 
fected  "  the  Doctor.  It  was  certainly  the  case  that  he 
never  showed  the  slightest  inclination  to  enter  the 
circle  of  the  so-called  "  Emersonians."  He  under 
stood  Emerson  with  his  intellectual  intelligence ;  but 
he  did  not  appreciate  him  sympathetically  to  any  con 
siderable  degree,  and  was  very  far  indeed  from  "  sit 
ting  at  his  feet."  Emerson  wrote  of  religions,  Holmes 
wrote  of  creeds ;  Emerson  dealt  with  Man,  Holmes 
concerned  himself  with  men;  Emerson  found  his 
topics  in  idealities,  Holmes  found  his  in  things  con 
crete;  Emerson  was  mystical,  sometimes  incompre 
hensible,  but  no  reader  could  close  his  intelligence 
against  the  lucidity  of  every  sentence  of  Holmes. 


56  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

The  truth  was  that  it  was  interesting  to  see  two  men, 
bred  from  like  stock,  belonging  in  the  same  genera 
tion,  living  amid  the  same  surroundings,  both  engaged 
in  knocking  off  the  fetters  of  old  thought  and  belief, 
yet  doing  their  work  along  lines  so  widely  apart,  in 
methods  so  utterly  diverse,  reaching  such  different 
kinds  of  men  through  such  different  influences,  and 
never  moving  even  tentatively  towards  any  alliance  in 
effort.  The  real  curiosity  is  that  under  such  circum 
stances  these  two  neighbors,  fellow-laborers,  friends, 
wrote,  each  as  if  he  had  never  heard  of  the  other  nor 
read  a  line  from  his  pen.  This  really  was  odd,  —  not 
that  Holmes  was  influenced  by  Emerson,  but  that  he 
did  not  seem  to  have  been  influenced  by  him  in  the 
very  slightest  degree. 

If  evidence  of  this  independence  were  needed,  it  is 
abundantly  supplied  by  the  Life  of  Emerson  which 
the  Doctor  wrote  for  the  American  Men  of  Letters 
Series.  In  point  of  fact,  so  well  was  the  Doctor's 
relationship  towards  "  Emersonianism  "  known  that, 
when  it  was  learned  that  he  had  been  invited  to 
write  this  volume,  the  selection  was  generally  regarded 
as  far  from  fortunate.  There  was  curiosity  to  hear 
what  Holmes  would  say  about  Emerson,  but  there  was 
no  very  great  expectation  of  a  biography  which  would 
gratify  the  admirers  of  the  philosopher.  It  was  the 
Holmes  element,  not  the  Emerson  element,  which  was 
looked  forward  to.  These  anticipations  were  substan 
tially  fulfilled.  The  book  has  many  brilliant  sugges 
tive  passages  in  the  vein  of  the  writer,  but  the  critic 
must  declare  that  it  achieves  a  limited  success  in  de 
picting  its  subject,  and  therefore,  as  a  biography,  it  is 
entitled  only  to  moderate  praise.  Yet  it  may  be  con- 
ceded  that  the  task  of  writing  the  life  of  a  philosopher 


LIFE   OF  EMERSON  57 

is  intrinsically  of  extreme  if  not  insuperable  diffi 
culty  ;  and  it  is  true  that  the  reading  public  has  set 
the  stamp  of  its  approval  upon  the  Doctor's  volume  by 
buying  it,  and  presumably  also  reading  it  with  much 
avidity. 

Probably  the  inducement  to  the  invitation  to  write  it 
was  found  in  the  remarks  which  the  Doctor  delivered 
before  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  in  May, 
1882  ;  for  he  was  never  excelled  in  uttering  a  graceful 
tribute,  and  on  this  occasion  he  was  equal  to  his  best,  as 
witness  this  one  among  many  admirable  paragraphs :  — 

"  What  could  we  do  with  this  unexpected,  unpro 
vided  for,  unclassified,  half  unwelcome  newcomer,  who 
had  been  for  a  while  potted,  as  it  were,  in  our  Unita 
rian  cold  green-house,  but  had  taken  to  growing  so  fast 
that  he  was  lifting  off  its  glass  roof  and  letting  in  the 
hailstorms  ?  Here  was  a  protest  that  outflanked  the 
extreme  left  of  liberalism,  yet  so  calm  and  serene  that 
its  radicalism  had  the  accents  of  the  gospel  of  peace. 
Here  was  an  iconoclast  without  a  hammer,  who  took 
down  our  idols  from  their  pedestals  so  tenderly  that 
it  seemed  like  an  act  of  worship." 

But  despite  the  skill  of  such  happy  words,  it  may 
be  safely  believed  that  the  misgivings  of  the  Emerso- 
nians  were  shared  by  the  Doctor  himself,  and  that  he 
undertook  his  task  by  no  means  without  anxiety.  He 
wrote  his  friend  John  O.  Sargent,  August  11,  1883 : 
"I  took  it  up  very  reluctantly,  having  been  a  late 
comer  as  an  admirer  of  the  Concord  poet  and  philos 
opher.  But  I  have  got  interested  in  it,  and  am  read 
ing  and  studying  to  get  at  the  true  inwardness  of  this 
remarkable  being  and  his  world.  I  hope  I  shall  come 
to  be  as  familiar  with  him  as  you  are  with  Horace." 
This  is  certainly  not  a  promising  attitude  for  a  biog- 


58  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

rapher  to  occupy  towards  his  subject,  —  resolution  to 
attempt,  by  study,  to  get  at  him.  But  if  the  circum 
stances  called  for  hard  and  thorough  work,  the  Doctor 
gave  it ;  and  in  time  he  was  able  to  write  to  James 
Russell  Lowell :  "  I  find  the  study  of  Emerson  curi 
ously  interesting,  —  few,  I  think,  can  bear  study  into 
all  his  mental,  moral,  personal  conditions  as  he  does."  *• 
Thus  closely  was  he  conducting  his  research,  rather,  it 
should  be  said,  his  inspection  into  his  subject.  Not 
altogether  differently  in  times  past  he  had  studied  in 
Paris ;  but  he  had  found  it  easier  to  get  at  the  cra 
nial  bones  and  the  brain-cells  than  at  thoughts  and 
mental  processes. 

He  exhausted  all  resources,  sought  all  assistance, 
and  devoted  a  long  period  to  the  close  investigation 
of  the  writings  of  Mr.  Emerson.  The  man  himself, 
as  a  man,  he  had  known  well,  and  he  had  felt,  with 
a  sentiment  of  warm  admiration,  the  rare  personal 
charm  of  that  gentle  and  most  lovable  nature.  He 
saw,  too,  with  delighted  appreciation,  that  fine  humor 
which  ran  like  a  delicate,  luminous,  golden  thread 
through  the  subtle  braid  of  Emerson's  expression,  and 
which  quite  escaped  the  notice  of  many  of  the  seri 
ous-minded  and  high-souled  idolaters  at  the  Concord 
shrine.  These  were  great  and  fortunate  aids  to  the 
Doctor,  yet  in  spite  of  all  that  he  could  do,  I  think 
that  he  never  felt  entirely  easy  with  his  work.  Writ 
ing  to  Mr.  Alexander  Ireland,  he  begs  to  be  allowed 
to  borrow  from  that  gentleman's  "  very  interesting 
volume  of  Recollections  ; "  he  "  hopes,  with  some  def 
erence,"  that  he  "  may  be  able  to  add  something  to 
what  has  already  been  written  ;  "  and  he  consoles  him 
self  with  the  reflection  that  "  the  idea  of  this  Series  is 
rather,  I  think,  to  meet  the  need  of  that  class  of  read- 
1  August  29,  1883. 


LIFE   OF  EMERSON  59 

ers  which  dreads  a  surfeit,  though  it  wants  to  be  fed 
to  a  moderate  amount,  and  may  be  made  hungry  for 
more,  if  we  do  not  begin  by  cramming  too  hard." 1 
In  the  course  of  his  work  he  writes :  — 

TO   JAMES    FREEMAN    CLARKE. 

February  9,  1884. 

MY  DEAR  JAMES,  —  Will  you  please  mention  to 
me  anything  and  everything  you  have  printed  about 
Mr.  Emerson  ? 

Where  is  the  letter  you  brought  to  the  meeting  of 
the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society  ? 

Is  it  possible  for  you  to  write  out  for  me  any  remi 
niscences  of  Emerson,  —  of  the  "  Transcendental  " 
people  and  times,  of  E.'s  relations  with  yourself  — 
with  Margaret  Fuller? — anything  not  already  before 
the  public  ? 

I  find  myself  somewhat  in  the  position  of  Carlyle's 
editor  —  threshing  the  thrice-beaten  straw ;  and  I  can 
do  nothing  but  —  let  me  change  the  metaphor  — 
pump  once  more  at  the  old  wells. 

My  dear,  blessed,  old  friend,  it  is  too  bad  to  put 
so  busy  a  man  as  you  to  the  torture,  but  I  am  myself 
not  unused  to  the  thumbscrew  and  the  bootikins,  and 
have  now  and  then  helped  out  a  friend,  nay,  a  stran 
ger,  with  a  blank  page  before  him  and  a  Publisher's 
demon  behind  him.  But  if  my  request  comes  inop 
portunely  and  distresses  or  overburdens  you,  as  a 
straw  too  much  sometimes  does,  say  that  your  time 
and  hands  are  too  full,  or  in  a  single  word  that  you 
are  busy  or  tired,  and  forget  my  request.  Not  the 
less  shall  I  remain 

Always  affectionately  yours, 

O.  W.  HOLMES. 

1  January  4,  1884. 


60  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 


TO   MISS   ELLEN   EMERSON. 

October  9,  1884. 

MY  DEAR  Miss  EMERSON,  —  You  are  too  kind! 
Your  letter  is  so  full  and  precise  in  its  answer  to  my 
questions  that  I  feel  very  grateful  for  the  pains  you 
have  taken  with  it.  ...  Everybody  wishes  to  know 
from  the  original  sources  of  intimate  knowledge  those 
conditions  of  an  extraordinary  life  which  it  shares 
with  ordinary  lives,  —  with  their  own. 

Dr.  Johnson's  cups  of  tea  and  his  hoarded  orange- 
peel  make  him  real  to  us,  and  we  are  thankful  to 
Boswell  for  telling  us  about  them.  In  a  generation 
or  two  your  father  will  be  an  ideal,  tending  to  become 
as  mystical  as  Buddha  but  for  these  human  circum 
stances,  which  remind  us  that  he  was  a  man,  "  subject 
to  like  passions  as  we  are,"  as  well  as  Elias,  of  whom 
the  Apostle  speaks.  It  will  delight  so  many  people 
to  know  these  lesser  circumstances  of  a  great  life  that 
I  can  hardly  bear  to  lose  sight  of  any  of  them,  except 
the  infirmities  which  time  brought  with  it ;  and  even 
these  were  very  much  less  painful  to  tell  of  than  such 
as  have  fallen  to  the  lot  of  many  famous  men. 

He  thanked  Mr.  Warner,1  the  editor  of  the  Series, 
for  pointing  out  sundry  repetitions.  He  says  :  — 

"  I  am  afraid  there  may  be  others,  for  I  have  often 
picked  up  the  same  facts  from  different  sources ;  and, 
writing  at  intervals,  had  forgotten  the  ground  I  had 
covered.  The  truth  is  that  Emerson's  life  and  writ 
ings  have  been  so  darned  over  by  biographers  and 
critics  that  a  new  hand  can  hardly  tell  his  own  yarn 
from  that  of  his  predecessors,  or  one  of  theirs  from 
1  July  11, 1884. 


LIFE   OF   EMERSON  61 

another's.  I  wish  you  would  point  out  anything  that 
specially  needs  correction,  and  I  will  do  what  I  can 
to  make  it  right,  if  I  have  to  break  up  stereotype 
plates  to  do  it.  ...  Don't  think  I  am  sensitive  to 
corrections,  but  suggest  anything  that  you,  as  editor, 
think  will  help  make  the  Memoir  better." 

How  deeply  the  anxiety  to  do  well  sank  into  his 
mind,  and  how  difficult  he  found  his  task,  may  be 
inferred  from  the  fact  that  afterward,  in  writing  the 
introduction  to  A  Mortal  Antipathy,  he  lugged  in 
the  matter,  and  disburthened  himself,  as  from  an  over 
laden  recollection  of  his  past  labor,  of  these  reflec 
tions  :  — 

"  And  now  for  many  months  I  have  been  living  in 
daily  relations  of  intimacy  with  one  who  seems  nearer 
to  me  since  he  has  left  us  than  while  he  was  here  in 
living  form  and  feature.  I  did  not  know  how  difficult 
a  task  I  had  undertaken  in  venturing  upon  a  memoir 
of  a  man  whom  all,  or  almost  all,  agree  upon  as  one 
of  the  great  lights  of  the  New  "World,  and  whom  very 
many  regard  as  an  unpredicted  Messiah.  Never  be 
fore  was  I  so  forcibly  reminded  of  Carlyle's  description 
of  the  work  of  a  newspaper  editor,  —  that  threshing 
of  straw  already  thrice-beaten  by  the  flails  of  other 
laborers  in  the  same  field.  What  could  be  said  that 
had  not  been  said  of  '  transcendentalism '  and  of  him 
who  was  regarded  as  its  prophet ;  of  the  poet  whom 
some  admired  without  understanding,  a  few  under 
stood,  or  thought  they  did,  without  admiring,  and 
many  both  understood  and  admired,  —  among  these 
there  being  not  a  small  number  who  went  far  beyond 
admiration,  and  lost  themselves  in  devout  worship? 
While  one  exalted  him  as  '  the  greatest  man  that  ever 
lived,'  another,  a  friend,  famous  in  the  world  of  let- 


62  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

ters,  wrote  expressly  to  caution  me  against  the  danger 
of  overrating  a  writer  whom  he  is  content  to  recognize 
as  an  American  Montaigne,  and  nothing  more." 

One  thing  is  noteworthy  :  the  biographer  got  to  the 
end  of  his  work  without  once  telling  to  his  reader  any 
of  his  own  secrets ;  what  he  himself  held  for  truth  or 
probability  as  to  the  matters  dealt  with  by  Emerson, 
what  faith  or  what  feeling  he  himself  had  towards 
mysticism  and  transcendentalism,  toward  God  and 
man  and  the  universe  and  all  the  points  of  religion 
interwoven  therewith,  he  had  managed  to  keep  care 
fully  to  himself.  The  curiosity  to  get  at  some  definite 
notion  of  the  Doctor's  actual  beliefs  remained  unsat 
isfied,  to  the  great  disappointment  of  many  a  reader, 
who  made  his  way  through  the  volume,  not  in  order 
to  find  out  what  Dr.  Holmes  thought  that  Emerson 
thought,  but  to  find  out  what  Dr.  Holmes  himself 
thought ;  and  who  was  no  wiser  on  this  point  when 
he  closed  than  when  he  opened  the  book.  The  astute 
biographer  had  evaded  even  this  trap  and  extreme 
temptation.  He  would  never  take  his  recipes  and  his 
formulas  out  of  the  province  of  medicine  into  that  of 
religion. 

When  the  book  was  at  last  on  the  booksellers' 
counters,  the  delivered  author  wrote  to  Mr.  Ireland,1 
with  relief  as  obvious  as  if  one  could  hear  the  sigh :  — 

"  I  am  taking  the  opportunity  to  send  you  the  last 
book  I  have  written.  I  doubt  whether  you  will  care 
to  read  it ;  I  doubt  whether  you  will  like  it,  if  you  do. 
I  wish  that,  if  it  reaches  you  in  safety,  you  could  sit 
down  at  once  and  acknowledge  its  receipt.  You  may 
add,  if  you  choose,  that  you  c  hope  in  the  near  future 
to  have  the  pleasure  of  reading  it,'  —  the  '  near  future ' 
1  January  15,  1885. 


LIFE  OF  EMERSON  63 

standing  for  the  Greek  Kalends.  This  I  say  in  all 
sincerity.  A  volume  like  this  carries  dismay  with  it, 
when  the  recipient  supposes  he  is  expected  to  read 
it  from  title  to  Finis,  and  it  is  only  as  a  friendly 
token  that  I  send  it." 

His  brother  John  read  the  volume  and  sent  to  him 
a  humorous  compliment  on  not  having  written  more : 
"  You  have  achieved  a  wonder,  it  seems  to  me,  in  get 
ting  your  work  into  so  small  compass,  and  I  think  it 
no  small  evidence  of  ability;  people  are  so  apt  to 
swell  and  become  dropsical  with  biographic  autop 
sies.  .  .  .  Now  do  take  a  turn  at  novel-reading  and 
have  a  blow-out  on  tea,  if  you  won't  go  anything 
stronger." 

Perhaps  the  foregoing  remarks  on  the  Emerson 
may  seem  unduly  severe ;  let  the  scales,  then,  be  bal 
anced  by  a  critic,  who  was  exceptionally  able  to  form, 
and  was  sure  to  express,  a  just  conclusion  in  this  case, 
who  lived  at  Concord,  knew  and  fondly  cared  for 
Emerson,  and  never  was  charged  with  making  truth 
fulness  subordinate  to  amenities. 


EBENEZER  ROCKWOOD   HOAR   TO   OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES. 

CONCORD,  December  28,  1884. 

MY  DEAR  DR.  HOLMES,  —  Permit  me  to  formally 
return  my  acknowledgment  and  thanks  for  your  gift 
of  the  Memoir  of  Emerson,  which  will  be  a  valued 
possession  for  its  own  merits,  and  very  precious  as  a 
souvenir  of  your  constant  friendship. 

I  was  very  much  astonished,  when  you  made  your 
address  on  Emerson  before  the  Historical  Society,  to 
find  how  much  you  knew  and  understood  about  him. 


64  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

This  is  no  disparagement,  but  merely  the  result  of  a 
strong  impression  that  there  were,  in  the  mental  activ 
ities  of  each  of  you,  departments  (or  I  might  say 
apartments)  which  the  other  had  never  visited.  You 
will  perhaps  understand  me  better  when  I  say  that 
I  felt  the  same  kind  of  wonder  at  Mr.  Emerson's 
own  marvellous  discourse  on  Burns,  whose  qualities 
I  should  have  thought  to  be  rather  "  out  of  his  line  " 
—  though  very  much  in  mine. 

I  do  not  yet  believe  that  you  have  got  hold  of  all 
there  was  in  Emerson,  any  more  than  I  thought  in 
his  lifetime  that  he  understood  all  there  was  in  you. 
Indeed,  "  much  meditating  these  things,"  I  incline  to 
think  that  a  perfect  sympathy  is  only  possible  in  a 
disciple  and  admirer  —  pure  and  simple  —  who  has  no 
separate  gift  or  quality  of  his  own. 

But  I  think  the  book  is  admirably  done,  and  will 
be  of  great  value  in  making  Emerson's  puolic  and  your 
public  —  so  far  as  they  are  not  the  same  —  better  ac 
quainted.  I  have  heard  two  or  three  very  competent 
persons  say  that  they  were  sorry  there  was  not  more 
in  it  of  Dr.  Holmes ;  a  double-headed  compliment,  at 
once  to  your  faithfulness  as  a  biographer  and  charm 
as  a  writer  on  your  own  account. 

The  memoir  of  Motley  was  finished  in  1878 ;  that 
of  Emerson  in  the  autumn  of  1884.  They  were  the 
only  efforts  which  Dr.  Holmes  made  in  historical  or 
biographical  literature,  and  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
they  snowed  no  very  high  or  rare  degree  of  aptitude 
for  that  kind  of  work.  There  were  too  many  fences 
in  such  fields,  and  he  could  not  move  discursively 
enough. 


CHAPTER  XV 
EUROPEAN  TRIP  :   OLD   AGE 

IN  April,  1886,  Dr.  Holmes  started,  with  his  daugh 
ter,  Mrs.  Sargent,  upon  a  trip  to  Europe.  He  had  not 
been  abroad  since  he  was  a  medical  student,  yet  it  was 
only  a  brief  visit  that  he  made  now,  —  four  months, 
including  the  two  voyages,  and  he  passed  the  time 
almost  wholly  in  England.  He  had  greatly  changed 
his  feelings  and  opinions  concerning  England  and 
Englishmen  since  the  days  of  his  golden  youth  in 
Paris.  Community  of  language  and  of  blood  had 
done  its  work  ;  moreover,  the  Englishmen  had  appre 
ciated  and  liberally  praised  his  books,  and  it  would 
have  been  unnatural  and  ungrateful  if  he  had  not 
rendered  to  them  a  handsome  return  in  kind.  So, 
now,  although  it  was  his  last  chance  to  see  the  world, 
their  little  island  seemed  to  bound  his  desires  and  his 
curiosity.  His  stay  was  in  reality  a  triumphal  tour ; 
he  was  overwhelmed  with  attentions,  so  that  it  was 
only  by  extreme  care  that  he  extricated  himself  alive 
from  the  hospitalities  of  his  British  friends.  But  if 
it  was  fatiguing  it  was  exceedingly  flattering ;  and  it 
was  a  novel  and  interesting  experience  for  the  quiet 
townsman  from  Boston  to  find  himself  in  the  torrent 
of  London  society  in  "  the  season."  "  He  is  enjoying 
himself  immensely,"  wrote  James  Eussell  Lowell, 
"  and  takes  as  keen  an  interest  in  everything  as  he 
would  have  done  at  twenty.  I  almost  envy  him  this 

VOL.  II. 


66  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

freshness  of  genius.  Everybody  is  charmed  with  him, 
as  it  is  natural  they  should  be."  One  regrets  a  little 
that  the  Englishmen  did  not  see  him  at  his  best.  Of 
course  they  appreciated  the  inroads  of  age,  and  made 
allowances  for  them ;  but  making  allowances  is  not  a 
vivid  transaction,  and  the  visions  of  fancy  fall  sadly 
short  of  the  realism  of  actual  encounter.  We  must  all 
wish  that  he  had  made  that  trip  thirty  years  earlier. 

There  is  no  need  to  say  much  of  this  incident  in 
his  life,  because  the  history  of  the  journey  was  written 
by  the  Doctor  himself,  under  the  title  of  Our  Hun 
dred  Days  in  Europe,  a  book  pleasant  enough  to 
glance  through,  bearing  in  mind  that  the  chief  object 
of  its  writing  was  to  make  acknowledgment  for  the 
courtesies  of  the  reception  which  had  been  extended 
to  the  author. 

It  had  happened  that,  after  Dr.  Holmes  had  suc 
ceeded  in  outliving  the  allotted  term  of  human  exist 
ence,  Harvard  University  became  aware  that  he  was 
a  man  of  somewhat  more  than  average  note.  The 
consequence  of  this  discovery  had  been  that,  in  1880, 
he  was  able  to  write  to  James  Russell  Lowell :  "  I 
bought  me  a  new  silk  gown  and  went  to  Commence 
ment,  and  they  made  me  an  LL.  D."  Now,  during 
his  stay  in  England,  the  British  seats  of  learning 
seized  the  opportunity  to  do  likewise ;  Cambridge 
made  him  a  Doctor  of  Letters,  Edinburgh  gave  him 
another  LL.  D.,  and  Oxford  made  him  D.  C.  L.  He 
was  naturally  gratified  with  these  honors,  and  was 
not  at  all  annoyed  when  the  Cambridge  undergradu 
ates  burst  into  an  uproarious  song  of  "-  Holmes,  sweet 
Holmes."  At  Oxford  he  was  let  off  with  unwonted 
courtesy  on  the  part  of  the  galleries,  for  the  only 
chaffing  aimed  at  him  personally  was  from  one  young 


EUROPEAN  TRIP:    OLD   AGE  67 

gentleman,  who  expressed  a  pardonable  curiosity  to 
know  whether  he  came  in  the  "One-Hoss  Shay." 
But  the  like  moderation  was  not  shown  towards  the 
other  participants  in  the  ceremony,  according  to  this 
account  by  a  gentleman  who  wrote  to  The  Outlook, 
over  the  signature  of  "  Christ  Church,"  and  spoke  as 
an  eye-witness :  — 

"  This  '  Commem '  of  1886  was  a  famous  one. 
Honest  John  Bright  had  reconciled  his  Quaker  con 
science  to  red  robes,  and  stood  up  to  be  honored.  His 
grand  face  was  applauded  to  the  echo.  But  the  gallery 
gods  had  heartier  applause  for  Dr.  Holmes,  whose 
almost  boyish  countenance  told  them  of  the  eternal 
youth  in  the  poet's  heart.  What  a  quick  response 
there  was  from  those  other  hearts  up  aloft,  who  knew 
that  the  good  Doctor  would  not  mind  the  unbridled 
license  which  they  enjoy  one  day  in  the  year !  The 
complimentary  address  was  being  read,  Dr.  Holmes 
standing  in  his  scarlet  finery,  but  the  noise  in  the 
gallery  was  deafening :  '  Hurry  up  your  Latin,  man.' 
4  Open  your  mouth  so  that  the  Doctor  can  hear.' 
4  Mispronounced  again,  sir ;  the  Doctor  is  laughing 
at  you,'  and  verily  the  Autocrat  could  not  keep  back 
a  broad  grin  from  that  face  which  seemed  indeed 
always  kindly  smiling.  The  speaker  did  finally 
stumble  and  stutter.  Then  how  he  was  reviled ! 
4  Take  a  deeper  breath,  sir.'  '  Now,  one,  two,  three.' 
4  Don't  prompt  him,  O  Vice-Chancellor.'  '  I  say,  let 
him  go  it  alone.'  '  Lady 's  looking  over  your  shoulder, 
sir.'  Dr.  Holmes's  grin  was  subsiding  as  the  speaker 
tried  to  find  his  place,  so  we  next  heard :  '  Doctor 
wants  to  know  where  the  joke  is,  sir.'  '  Hurry  up ! 
don't  you  see  our  guest  is  tired  ? '  And  when  at  last 
the  end  came,  and  the  Autocrat  was  enrolled  among 


68  OLITER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

the  worthies,  *  Give  the  Autocrat  a  seat,'  for  the 
D.  C.  L.  bench  was  well  crowded.  '  Room,  room  ! ' 
'  Seat,  seat ! '  '  Come,  show  your  manners,  gentle 
men  ! '  '  No  place  for  Wendell  Holmes  to  sit ! ' : 

In  December,  1882,  Dr.  Holmes  wrote  to  his  friend 
Mrs.  Kellogg :  "  You  know  I  have  given  up  my  Pro 
fessorship.  I  had  a  pleasant  opening  offered  me,  and 
as  I  had  had  about  enough  schoolmastering,  I  took  off 
my  professor's  gown,  and  now  I  am  in  my  literary 
shirt-sleeves."  But  literary  shirt-sleeves  were  the  garb 
for  hard  work,  not  for  leisure.  The  biographies  afore 
mentioned  and  the  European  journal  were  not  up  to 
the  mark  of  his  ambition,  which  contemplated  flights 
more  like  those  of  the  past  days.  I  do  not  think  that 
he  considered  that  he  could  any  longer  write  so  well 
as  he  had  done  in  the  heyday  of  his  lively  genius ;  but 
he  thought  that  he  could  still  write  well  enough  to 
justify  him  in  continuing;  he  believed  that  many  read 
ers  would  still  be  interested,  chiefly  perhaps  the  older 
men  and  women,  who  cherished  associations  with  his 
earlier  work.  He  knew  that,  for  himself,  it  was  at 
once  wholesome  and  pleasurable.  So  he  clung  to  his 
desk  and  his  pen,  and  there  was  something  at  once 
pathetic  and  admirable  in  the  mingling  of  self-know 
ledge  and  resolution  which  impelled  him  to  it.  "  The 
old  man  may  go  below  his  own  mark  with  impunity," 
he  said.  He  had  always  been  kindly  to  his  fellow- 
men,  he  hoped  that  they  would  be  kindly  also  to  him ; 
he  set  them  the  example;  he  extended  his  native 
charity  so  that  it  included  himself,  —  dealt  out  for 
his  own  benefit  that  which  all  his  life  long  he  had 
liberally  dispensed  for  the  benefit  of  others. 

Of  A  Mortal  Antipathy  mention  has  already  been 


EUROPEAN  TRIP:    OLD   AGE  69 

made  in  connection  with  his  other  novels.  It  was  pub 
lished  in  1885.  In  March,  1888,  he  began  the  series  of 
papers  which  he  happily  christened  Over  the  Teacups. 
It  would  be  idle  to  pretend  that  they  are  as  good  as  the 
talk  of  the  Autocrat;  but  they  make  very  pleasant 
reading,  with  abundant  infusion  of  the  old-time  wit, 
wisdom,  and  humor.  Indeed,  the  display  of  these 
qualities,  surviving  in  such  freshness  and  luxuriance 
after  eighty  years  of  life,  was  an  occurrence  nearly  if 
not  altogether  unprecedented  in  literature.  The  papers 
were  really  a  magnificent  tour  de  force  of  a  spirited 
old  man,  unyielding,  holding  his  own  against  the  col 
umn  of  the  hostile  years. 

The  Doctor  had  been  not  a  little  anxious  as  to  the 
reception  which  would  be  accorded  to  his  reappear 
ance  in  the  colloquial  vein.  He  wrote  to  his  friend 
John  Bellows,  in  England :  "  I  don't  suppose  I  can 
make  my  evening  teacups  as  much  of  a  success  as  my 
morning  coffee-cups  were,  but  I  have  found  an  occu 
pation,  and  my  friends  encourage  me  with  the  assur 
ance  that  I  am  not  yet  in  my  second  childhood."  He 
had  modestly  "  thought  that  he  had  something  left  to 
say,"  and  he  was  gratified  when  he  "  found  listeners." 
Also  he  "  had  occupation  and  kept  himself  in  relation 
with  his  fellow-beings."  And  although  he  had  "cleared 
the  eight-barred  gate  "  and  was  not  far  from  the  ulti 
mate  deadly  goal,  the  gallant  old  gentleman  said : 
"  New  sympathies,  new  sources  of  encouragement,  if 
not  of  inspiration,  have  opened  themselves  before  me, 
and  cheated  the  least  promising  season  of  life  of  much 
that  seemed  to  render  it  dreary  and  depressing."  Of 
course  the  way  in  which  the  public  and  the  critics 
took  the  book  was  most  gratifying;  but  the  Doctor 
spoke  with  shrewd  though  pleased  modesty  about  it. 
He  wrote  to  Mrs.  Dorr :  — 


70  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

"  I  am  glad  to  know  that  you  liked  the  tea  I  served 
you.  Those  wintry  products  of  my  freezing  wits  have 
been  very  kindly  received.  I  was  a  little  doubtful 
whether  it  was  safe  to  begin  a  serial  at  threescore  and 
twenty,  but  I  found  some  entertainment  in  the  work, 
and  on  the  whole  have  not  regretted  my  audacity.  I 
do  not  expect  to  repeat  the  experiment,  but  it  is  not 
impossible  that  I  may  now  and  then  send  a  paper  to 
The  Atlantic.  Were  it  not  for  the  continual  calls 
upon  me  from  all  quarters,  I  could  hardly  help  doing 
a  little  literary  work  now  and  then." 

The  most  remarkable  feature  in  these  papers  is  the 
poem  of  "  The  Broomstick  Train,"  so  humorous  in  con 
ception,  so  spirited  and  lilting  in  execution.  It  was  a 
marvel,  as  the  production  of  a  man  upwards  of  eighty 
years  of  age ;  if  the  electric  car  had  not  been  so  re 
cent  an  invention,  we  should  swear  that  these  dashing 
stanzas  had  been  written  by  the  Doctor  in  the  flower 
of  his  days,  and  laid  away,  to  be  brought  forth  as  the 
prodigy  of  those  years  which  it  was  absurd  to  call 
declining,  in  the  face  of  this  ballad.  The  old  gentle 
man  was  pleased,  and  had  reason  to  be,  with  the  com 
pliments  which  friends  lavished  upon  this  wonderful 
outburst  of  an  octogenarian  muse.  He  wrote :  — 

TO    CHARLES    DUDLEY    WARNER. 

August  13,  1890. 

MY  DEAR  WARNER,  —  I  thank  you  for  the  pleasant 
words  you  wrote  me  about  "  my  broomstick  poem." 
It  made  me  feel  young  to  write  it,  and  I  am  glad  you 
thought  it  had  something  of  the  elasticity  of  youth  in 
it.  An  old  tree  can  put  forth  a  leaf  as  green  as  that 
of  a  young  one,  and  looks  at  it  with  a  pleasant  sort  of 
surprise,  I  suppose,  as  I  do  at  my  saucily  juvenile 
production.  Thank  you  once  more. 


EUROPEAN  TRIP:    OLD  AGE  71 

A  sad  occurrence  made  an  hiatus  of  many  months* 
duration  between  the  first  and  the  second  numbers  of 
The  Teacups.  Dr.  Holmes  had  been  singularly  fortu 
nate  in  escaping  bereavement,  but  it  was  impossible 
to  tempt  fate  through  so  many  years  and  pass  without 
loss  to  the  end  of  life.  It  was  in  1884  that  his  son 
Edward  had  died.  Now  in  the  winter  of  1887-88  his 
wife  followed.  To  dwell  upon  what  this  meant  is  need 
less,  and  I  prefer  to  pass  over  that  grief  in  silence. 
His  daughter,  Mrs.  Sargent,  at  once  came  to  live  with 
him,  and  after  a  short  while  he  made  courageous  efforts 
to  rally,  to  escape  a  despairing  decadence  and  come 
back  to  a  system  of  life  which  might  still  have  value 
and  interest.  But  in  April,  1889,  the  daughter  fol 
lowed  the  mother.  Then  Mr.  Justice  Holmes,  with  his 
wife,  came  to  the  charge  of  the  Doctor's  old  age,  and 
they  stayed  with  him  during  the  remainder  of  his  days. 

In  1888  also  died  his  classmate,  Rev.  James  Free 
man  Clarke.  This,  though  of  course  an  entirely  dif 
ferent  blow,  was  likewise  a  grievous  one ;  I  do  not 
know  to  what  extent  the  two  men  met  from  day  to 
day,  but  certain  it  is  that  the  Doctor  had  a  warmth 
of  feeling  and  an  admiration  for  the  clergyman  such 
as  he  entertained  for  few  others,  if  indeed  for  any 
other  in  these  later  years.  He  wrote  as  follows  to 
another  brother  of  the  Class  of  '29 :  — 

TO   REV.    SAMUEL   MAY. 

June  20,  1888. 

MY  DEAR  MAY,  —  Do  not  wish  you  had  spoken 
more,  or  less,  or  otherwise  than  you  did  speak  at  the 
funeral  of  our  dearly  beloved  brother  Clarke.  I  was 
struck  with  the  deep  feeling,  yet  entire  self-mastery, 
which  showed  itself  in  your  every  word  and  tone. 


72  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

We  cannot  disguise  the  fact,  —  the  keystone  of  our 
arch  has  slid  and  fallen,  and  all  we  can  do  is  to  lean 
against  each  other  until  the  last  stone  is  left  standing 
alone. 

But  we  must  not  come  together  —  such  of  us  as 
are  left  to  meet  —  for  tears  and  lamentations.  If 
the  meetings  l  are  not  cheerful  and  hopeful  they  will 
be  looked  forward  to  with  pain  instead  of  pleasure. 
I  think  it  well,  therefore,  that  the  farewell  letter, 
which  would  sadden  us  to  tears,  should,  as  you  pro 
pose,  be  sent  in  some  form  to  every  member  of  the 
class.  I  know,  as  you  do,  that  if  James  could  have 
ordered  the  next  meeting  and  the  very  few  that  may 
be  granted  to  the  poor  remnant  of  our  threescore 
brothers,  he  would  have  wished  it  to  be  as  free  from 
sadness  as  a  meeting  of  old  men,  bereft  of  so  much 
that  made  life  bright  and  beautiful,  infirm,  dim-eyed, 
slow  of  hearing,  with  halting  intelligences  and  dulled 
sensibilities,  can  possibly  be. 

A  precious  memory  has  taken  the  place  of  a  beloved 
and  noble  presence.  We  must  be  thankful  that  we 
have  enjoyed  so  large  a  share  of  a  life  which  belonged 
to  the  world  as  one  of  its  most  cherished  and  rarest 
possessions.  We  know  not  who  among  us  will  be  the 
last  survivor,  but  whoever  he  is,  he  will  be  the  heir  of 
a  great  wealth  of  memories,  among  which  none  will  be 
sweeter,  none  freer  from  blemish  or  shortcoming. 

I  could  not  do  myself  or  my  subject  any  justice  in 
the  remarks  which  I  dictated  for  the  Christian  Reg 
ister.  At  the  Historical  Society  I  found  I  could  not 
see  to  read  my  notes,  and  therefore  spoke  extempore, 
in  great  measure,  with  more  effect,  they  said,  than  if 
I  had  read  what  I  had  written. 

1  Of  the  class  of  1829. 


EUROPEAN  TRIP:    OLD   AGE  73 

"I  could  not  see  to  read  my  notes,"  says  Dr. 
Holmes.  It  was  not  only  tears,  perhaps,  but  physical 
infirmity  which  caused  this  inability.  He  had  a  cat 
aract  gradually  forming.  With  characteristic  keen 
ness  of  self-observation  he  had  himself  discovered 
this,  as  he  told  Mrs.  Priestley,  one  of  his  English 
friends  :  "  It  is  now  some  years  since  I  gave  up  using 
the  microscope,  having  found  by  the  reflection  from 
my  lenses  that  there  was  an  opacity  somewhere  in  the 
field  of  vision  of  my  working  eye."  To  lose  the 
amusement  of  the  microscope  was  no  longer  of  much 
account,  but  the  serious  question  was  whether  this 
new  menace  would  be  fulfilled  to  the  point  of  blind 
ness.  Fortunately  it  never  was;  the  Doctor's  sight 
grew  very  dim  ;  still  his  handwriting  was  always  legi 
ble,  with  only  moderate  difficulty,  and  he  could  man 
age  to  read  somewhat  so  long  as  he  lived.  Yet  dur 
ing  his  last  years  he  had  to  use  the  services  of  a 
secretary  for  nearly  all  his  work,  and  the  black  cloud 
ever  hovered  threateningly  in  the  horizon.  It  is  need 
less  to  dilate  upon  what  a  misfortune  loss  of  eyesight 
would  have  been  to  him  ;  but  one  would  like  to  dilate, 
and  eloquently  too,  upon  the  serene  and  cheerful 
courage  with  which  he  faced  the  dread  prospect.  He 
spoke  of  the  condition  often,  but  not  once,  so  far  as  I 
have  seen,  with  a  moan.  He  admitted  that  he  rather 
preferred  "  eyes  au  naturel"  In  October,  1887,  he 
wrote  to  Dr.  Weir  Mitchell :  "  I  have  got  to  stop  writ 
ing  letters  on  account  of  my  eyes,  which  are,  I  fear,  in 
serious  difficulty,  though  they  look  well  enough."  In 
December  of  the  same  year  he  wrote  to  Mrs.  Priest 
ley  :  "  I  do  not  expect  to  write  many  more  such  let 
ters,  for  my  eyes  are  getting  very  bad,  and  I  am  afraid 
I  have  a  prospect  of  a  staff  and  a  little  dog  before 


74  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

me,  if  I  live  long  enough.  I  enclose  one  of  my  for 
mulae,  which  I  use  more  and  more,  often  writing  or 
dictating  a  few  words  to  be  added  on  the  next  page. 
I  have  a  very  bright  young  secretary,  who  will  do  most 
of  my  writing  for  me,  —  who  does  much  of  it  now. 
This  letter  shows  you  I  am  by  no  means  blind,  for  I 
am  writing  it  all  propria  manu,  and  though  not 
elegant,  it  is  far  from  illegible."  And  a  few  days 
later  the  irresistible  tendency  of  his  youth  for  the 
making  of  puns  reasserted  itself  in  the  following  sen 
tence  in  another  letter  to  the  same  lady  :  "  My  eyes 
are  getting  dreadfully  dim,  and  I  should  hardly  know 
your  beautiful  face  across  the  street.  One  of  them 
has,  I  fear,  though  I  don't  quite  know  —  a  cataract 
in  the  kitten  state  of  development.  Well,  I  can  write 
still,  as  you  see,  but  I  am  getting  my  pretty  secretary 
to  do  more  and  more  of  my  writing  for  me."  It  was 
a  question,  he  said,  very  philosophically,  whether  he 
should  outlast  his  eyes,  or  his  eyes  would  outlast  him. 
Very  narrowly  it  may  be  said  that  the  latter  event 
fell  out,  and  most  happily  so. 

For  a  few  years  after  giving  up  his  place  at  Pitts- 
field  Dr.  Holmes  passed  his  summers  in  various  places 
and  ways,  as  chance  dictated,  but  after  a  while,  as  he 
grew  older,  the  element  of  uncertainty  became  annoy 
ing,  and  he  established  his  permanent  residence  for 
the  hot  weather  at  Beverly  Farms,  on  the  North  Shore 
of  Massachusetts  Bay.  He  had  a  pleasant  little  cot 
tage  in  the  village,  hard  by  the  railway  station,  and 
when  the  occupants  of  the  neighboring  town  of  Man 
chester  saw  fit  to  christen  that  place  "  Manchester-by- 
the-Sea,"  he  used  to  date  his  letters  "  Beverly-by-the 
Depot ; "  but  later  he  had  to  abandon  this  little  sar 
casm,  for  he  moved  into  another  house  more  agreeably 


EUROPEAN  TRIP:    OLD  AGE  75 

situated.  This  seaside  region  is  a  gay  one  during  the 
summer  months ;  the  shore  is  very  beautiful,  and  for 
several  miles  on  each  side  of  the  Doctor's  residence 
the  summer  houses  of  the  city  people  crowd  each  other 
almost  too  closely,  and  the  ceaseless  stream  of  their 
gay  equipages  makes  the  road  lively.  The  Doctor 
found  much  entertainment  in  the  life  and  bustle  of 
the  place,  which  moreover  held  many  of  his  and  his 
wife's  relatives  and  friends.  He  never  acquired  for 
it  such  an  affection  as  he  had  felt  for  Pittsfield,  yet 
in  the  public  mind  he  became  closely  associated  with 
it,  because  during  the  later  years  of  his  life  his  birth 
day,  falling  in  the  midsummer,  came  to  be  celebrated 
as  an  anniversary  upon  which  friends  sought  to  de 
monstrate  affection  and  esteem.  The  school-children 
at  Beverly  Farms  came  in  their  holiday  clothes  to  pre 
sent  their  greetings,  and  to  take  away,  each  of  them, 
some  trifling  souvenir.  All  the  neighbors,  also,  the 
festal  host  of  the  "  summer  residents,"  came  ;  flowers 
and  fruit  filled  the  house,  often  sent  from  long  dis 
tances  ;  letters  and  telegrams  descended  like  a  summer 
shower;  sometimes  there  were  very  handsome  pres 
ents  :  there  was,  for  instance,  an  elaborate  silver  cup, 
inscribed  as  given  by  some  ladies  from  whom  any 
token  of  liking  would  have  had  value;  poems  were 
addressed  to  him ;  and  let  not  the  dread  reporter  be 
forgotten !  for  he  invariably  lent  the  sanction  of  his 
benign  presence  to  the  occasion,  so  that  the  cup  of 
glory  was  filled  quite  to  overflowing !  The  celebration 
became  rather  exhausting  for  the  Doctor  during  the 
last  few  years,  but  his  courteous  soul  would  not  permit 
him  to  say  "  not  at  home  "  to  any  one  who  showed  to 
him  the  kindness  of  calling.  Then,  for  days  after 
wards,  he  struggled  to  make  due  acknowledgment  for 


76  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

all  the  tokens  sent  to  him,  sometimes  trying  to  write 
briefly,  and  always  insisting  upon  at  least  signing 
whatever  had  been  written  by  his  secretary  after  his 
own  tired  eyes  had  given  out.  Naturally  these  notes 
are  not  worth  reproduction,  save,  perhaps,  this  one, 
written  "  in  answer  to  a  little  note  of  birthday  greeting 
sent  from  Ashfield  by  "  James  Eussell  Lowell,  George 
William  Curtis,  and  Charles  Eliot  Norton. 

BEVERLY  FARMS,  MASS.,  September  2,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  FRIENDS,  —  I  cannot  make  phrases  in 
thanking  you  for  your  kind  remembrance.  I  wish 
you  could  all  have  been  with  me  on  the  29th ;  every 
flower  of  garden  and  green-house,  and  fruits  that  Para 
dise  would  not  have  been  ashamed  of,  embowered  and 
emblazoned  our  wayside  dwelling. 

Grow  old,  my  dear  Boys,  grow  old !  Your  failings 
are  forgotten,  your  virtues  are  overrated,  there  is  just 
enough  of  pity  in  the  love  that  is  borne  you  to  give 
it  a  tenderness  all  its  own.  The  horizon  line  of  age 
moves  forward  by  decades.  At  sixty,  seventy  seems 
to  bound  the  landscape ;  at  seventy,  the  eye  rests  on 
the  line  of  eighty  ;  at  eighty,  we  can  see  through  the 
mist  and  still  in  the  distance  a  ruin  or  two  of  ninety  ; 
and  if  we  reach  ninety,  the  mirage  of  our  possible 
centennial  bounds  our  prospect. 

The  interviewers  pressed  me  hard,  as  you  may  have 
learned  if  you  happened  to  see  Monday's  Advertiser. 
I  surrendered  at  discretion,  and  answered  all  their 
questions.  It  looks  a  little  foolish,  perhaps,  to  be 
paraded  as  I  have  been  in  the  Advertiser  and  the 
Globe  (which  reproduced  a  felonious  old  wood-cut  of 
my  countenance),  but  I  could  not  avoid  it  without 
something  like  brutality  after  all  the  pains  the  inter 
viewers  had  taken  to  get  at  me. 


EUROPEAN  TRIP:    OLD   AGE  77 

My  dear 

James, 
George, 
Charles, 

I  thank  you  from  my  heart  for  remembering  me. 
Affectionately  yours, 

WENDELL. 

Litera  scripta  manet.  If  this  scrap  of  paper 
should  last  a  century,  somebody  might  think  it  was 
another  and  more  famous  Wendell 's,  so  I  will  sign 
my  name  in  full  as 

OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES. 

As  it  has  been  the  practice  in  this  Memoir  to  insert 
such  letters  and  notes  as  fell  naturally  into  the  course 
of  the  narrative,  and  such  as  were  hardly  of  sufficient 
importance  to  find  a  place  among  the  formal  "  Let 
ters,"  let  me  add  here  what  may  be  called  the  cor 
respondence  of  Dr.  Holmes's  old  age. 

TO  JOHN   G.    WHITTIER. 

October  18,  1881. 

MY  DEAR  WHITTIER,  —  It  is  a  pleasure  to  follow 
any  suggestion  of  yours,  for  it  is  sure  to  be  a  good 
and  kind  one.  I  will  request  Messrs.  Houghton  & 
Mifflin  to  forward  a  set  of  my  books  to  Swarthmore 
College,  happy  to  find  myself  in  such  good  company 
as  yourself  and  Longfellow.  I  have  passed  a  very 
pleasant  summer  at  Beverly  Farms,  having  nothing  to 
complain  of  except  rather  more  work  of  one  kind  and 
another  than  I  wanted.  I  wish  I  could  be  utterly  idle 
for  a  while,  but  I  do  not  think  I  could  be  except  on 
board  ship.  My  peculiar  pleasure,  besides  reading 
and  driving,  has  been  in  making  diagrams  for  my 


78  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

anatomical  lectures,  and  this  was,  after  all,  work,  how 
ever  agreeable. 

I  think  I  do  not  feel  any  considerable  change  in  my 
general  condition,  —  my  sight  grows  dimmer,  of  course, 

—  but  very  slowly.     I  have  worn  the  same  glasses  for 
twenty  years.     I  am  getting  somewhat  hard  of  hear 
ing, —  "slightly  deaf"  the  newspapers   inform   me, 
with  that  polite  attention  to  a  personal  infirmity  which 
is  characteristic  of  the   newspaper  press.     The  dis 
mantling  of  the  human  organism  is  a  gentle  process, 
more  obvious  to  those  who  look  on  than  to  those  who 
are  the  subjects  of  it.    It  brings  some  solaces  with  it : 
deafness  is  a  shield ;  infirmity  makes  those  around 
us  helpful ;   incapacity  unloads  our  shoulders  ;    and 
imbecility,  if   it  must  come,  is   always  preceded  by 
the  administration  of  one  of  Nature's  opiates.     It  is 
a  good  deal  that  we  older  writers,  whose  names  are 
often   mentioned   together,    should   have   passed  the 
Psalmist's  limit  of  active  life,  and  yet  have  an  audi 
ence  when  we  speak  or  sing. 

I  wish  you  all  the  blessings  you  have  asked  for  me 

—  how  much  better  you  deserve  them  ! 

TO  JAMES   RUSSELL   LOWELL. 

BOSTON,  April  29, 1885. 

MY  DEAR  JAMES,  —  I  got  yours  of  the  17th  April 
day  before  yesterday.  I  need  not  say  that  it  touched 
me  deeply.  It  seems  to  me  that  I  have  been  living 
with  sorrow  of  late  —  grief  of  my  own  and  that  of 
others.  The  loss  of  my  son  Edward  comes  back  to 
me  every  day,  as  I  think  of  all  that  life  promised  him 
if  he  could  but  have  had  the  health  to  enjoy  it,  and 
that  we  had  hoped  was  returning  to  him  when  he  was 
suddenly  taken  away. 


EUROPEAN  TRIP:    OLD  AGE  79 

Only  a  week  or  two  ago  occurred  the  funerals  of 
two  of  my  oldest  friends,  —  Dr.  Hooper  and  Dr. 
Cabot.  They  were  buried  on  the  same  day.  It  is  as 
if  an  autumn  wind  were  tearing  away  the  last  leaves 
all  around  me.  How  can  I  help  mourning  with  you  in 
your  separation  from  one  with  whom  you  have  lived 
so  long  and  happily  ?  All  that  friendship  can  do  to 
lighten  your  burden  you  can  be  sure  of.  What  pub 
lic  recognition  of  your  services,  what  civic  honors, 
may  await  you,  I  cannot  say ;  but  surely  no  career 
could  have  been  more  brilliantly  and  deservedly  suc 
cessful  than  your  whole  course  as  a  diplomatist.  You 
will  come  home  to  be  admired  and  caressed  —  you 
will  find  the  friends  who  are  still  left  you  as  attached 
as  ever. 

I  can  of  course  know  nothing  of  your  plans,  but 
whether  for  public  or  private  life,  you  have  a  record 
behind  you  and  a  store  of  memories,  which  will  glorify 
and  render  beautiful  your  coming  decades.  I  do  not 
believe  any  son  of  Harvard  ever  received  such  a 
welcome  as  awaits  you.  I  do  not  believe  any  foreign 
minister  ever  brought  back  such  a  reputation.  You 
may  be  sure  that  the  country  is  proud  of  you,  and 
longs  to  get  you  back  as  much  as  England  longs  to 
keep  you. 

TO   REV.   FREDERIC   H.    HEDGE,   D.   D. 

January  10,  1886. 

MY  DEAR  OLD  FRIEND,  —  You  please  me  much  by 
reminding  me  that  there  was  one  more  old  schoolmate, 
townsman,  companion,  almost  coeval,  always  friend, 
who  could  without  effort,  as  if  we  were  boys  again, 
call  me  Wendell.  I  can  but  think  of  four  others,  my 
wife  of  course  excepted,  who  indulge  me  in  the  luxury 


80  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

of  my  boyish  name.  .  .  .  The  rari  nantes  come  very 
near  to  each  other,  as  they  cling  to  the  few  planks 
left  together  of  the  raft  they  set  out  upon,  three  or 
four  score  years  ago.  .  .  . 

TO  PROF.    THOMAS  DWIGHT. 

September  4,  1887. 

DEAR  DR.  DWIGHT,  —  I  have  never  thanked  you,  I 
fear,  for  your  kind  message.  If  I  were  a  score  or  two 
years  younger  than  I  am  I  might  be  tempted  to  envy 
you,  remembering  my  quarters  at  the  old  college,  and 
being  reminded  of  your  comfortable  and  convenient 
arrangements  in  the  new  building.  But  I  do  not 
envy  —  I  congratulate  you ;  and  I  only  hope  I  did  not 
keep  you  waiting  too  long  for  the  place  which  you  nil 
so  ably. 

TO  JOHN   O.    SARGENT. 

February  10,  1889. 

MY  DEAR  JOHN,  —  Whether  I  answered  your  letter 
of  January  25th,  a  month  almost  ago,  or  not,  I  cannot 
swear ;  but  this  I  know,  that  I  read  it  with  great 
delight,  took  down  my  Horace,  found  that  you  had 
got  him  neatly  and  accurately,  and  envied  you  for  the 
moment  your  vital  familiarity  with  that  Roman  gentle 
man,  who  said  so  many  wise  and  charming  things  with 
such  continuity  as  is  to  be  found  nowhere  else  that 
I  know  of.  Perhaps  I  answered  you  at  once,  but  if 
so,  I  forgot  to  mark  your  letter  with  the  red  cross  X 
which  alone  prevents  my  answering  the  same  letter 
three  or  four  times. 

I  am  always  delighted  to  hear  from  you  —  there  is 
not  a  living  person,  except  my  brother  John,  who 
recalls  my  college  life  to  me  as  you  do.  My  friends 
—  contemporary  ones  —  are  all  gone  pretty  much. 


EUROPEAN  TRIP:    OLD  AGE  81 

James  Clarke  was  the  one  I  miss  most.  William 
Amory  I  saw  a  good  deal  of  in  these  last  years.  Asa 
Gray  I  liked  exceedingly,  though  I  did  not  see  him 
very  often.  Herman  Inches  I  go  to  see  pretty  often, 
but  he  is  gradually  wearing  out,  after  outliving  almost 
everybody  who  expected  to  go  to  his  funeral. 

You  make  some  fun  of  our  Class  meeting.  It  was 
not  very  exhilarating,  but  we  got  through  it  pretty 
well.  Two  who  were  there  last  year  were  missing. 
.  .  .  There  were  six  of  us.  ...  Stickney  and  Smith 
were  both  stone  deaf,  and  kept  up  some  kind  of  tele 
phony  with  each  other.  I  read  them  a  poem  in  which 
were  two  lines  that  I  remember:  "So  ends  'The 
Boys,'  a  life-long  play;"  and  "Farewell;  I  let  the 
curtain  fall."  The  drama  was  really  carried  out  very 
well.  All  kinds  of  character  were  represented,  and 
we  appeared  on  the  stage  in  larger  numbers  for  a 
longer  time  than  any  class  of  our  generation.  .  .  . 

How  strange  it  is  to  see  the  sons  of  our  contempora 
ries  getting  gray,  and  their  grandchildren  getting  en 
gaged  and  married.  I  take  the  Idbuntur  anni  without 
many  eheus.  The  truth  is,  Nature  has  her  anodynes, 
and  Old  Age  carries  one  of  them  in  his  pocket.  It  is 
some  kind  of  narcotic,  —  it  dulls  our  sensibility ;  it 
tends  to  make  us  sleepy  and  indifferent ;  and,  in  light 
ening  our  responsibilities  (which  President  Walker 
spoke  of  as  one  of  its  chief  blessings),  rids  us  of  many 
of  our  worries.  I  don't  think  you  grow  old,  and  in 
many  ways  I  do  not  feel  as  if  I  did.  But  sight  and 
hearing  won't  listen  to  any  nonsense ;  they  both  insist 
upon  it :  — 

'AvaKpeuv  yepuv  eT. 

I  wish  I  could  get  my  courage  up  to  do  a  little  more 
writing;  perhaps  I  shall;  you  would  read  what  I 

VOL.  H. 


82  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

wrote,  it  may  be,  and  think  of  the  old  days  of  the 
Collegian,  where  we  first  wrote  side  by  side. 

Good-by ;  I  find  it  hard  to  keep  up  with  my  cor- 
respondence,  but  your  letter  was  a  refreshment. 

TO  JOHN   G.    WHITTIER. 

September  2, 1889. 

MY  DEAR  WHITTIER,  —  Here  I  am  at  your  side 
among  the  octogenarians.  At  seventy  we  are  objects 
of  veneration,  at  eighty  of  curiosity,  at  ninety  of 
wonder ;  and  if  we  reach  a  hundred  we  are  candidates 
for  a  side-show  attached  to  Barnum's  great  exhibi 
tion.  .  .  . 

To  Dr.  Fordyce  Barker  he  wrote  in  January,  1890 : 
"  The  Harvard  Club  of  New  York  have  urged  me  to 
come  to  their  annual  meeting,  but  I  tell  them  that  my 
habitat  is  the  hearth-rug,  where  I  sit  and  repose  like 
an  old  tabby  cat." 

TO  JOHN   O.    SARGENT. 

March  15,  1890. 

MY  DEAR  JOHN,  —  You  may  be  tempted  for  the 
moment  to  say  sometimes,  "  What  an  insensible  crea 
ture  that  old  friend  of  mine  is !  Here  am  I,  one  of 
the  two  or  three  living  persons  whom  he  loves  to  have 
still  calling  him  Wendell  (Lowell  is  almost  the  only 
other  one),  and  I  have  twice  written  him  within  these 
last  weeks,  and  not  heard  a  word  from  him  in  reply." 
Well,  the  reason  is,  I  have  been  overworked  with  let 
ters  and  writing  for  The  Atlantic,  and  I  had  perfect 
faith  in  you,  that  you  would  not  say  or  think  anything 
hard  about  me  because  I  was  not  as  punctual  as  I 
ought  to  be.  Your  letters  were  and  are  full  of  inter- 


EUROPEAN  TRIP:    OLD   AGE  83 

est  to  me.  There  was  and  is  that  fine-spirited  ode 
with  the  life  and  glow  of  Horace  in  it,  which  I  read 
with  great  delight ;  then  there  was  that  kind,  friendly 
allusion  to  our  old  friend,  Isaac  McLellan.  I  don't 
believe  I  ever  thanked  him  for  his  tribute  to  me  on 
my  threescore-and-twentieth  birthday,  but  I  will,  you 
may  be  sure.  The  truth  is,  I  received  such  a  number 
of  flattering  letters,  poems,  etc.  (including  a  prema 
ture  obituary  in  a  Plattsburg  newspaper),  that  I  have 
to  "  buck  "  like  a  Mexican  pony  to  get  rid  of  my  load 
of  gratitude.  Otherwise  I  could  n't  have  forgotten 
dear  good  old  Isaac.  How  his  name  recalls  those  old 
days  when  you  and  Epes  and  Isaac  and  Durivage 
were  cheeping  round  with  the  egg-shells  on  our  callow 
shoulders !  I  ought  not  to  include  you,  I  know,  for 
you  were  more  matured  in  style  and  far  more  master 
of  your  weapons  than  most  of  the  rest  of  us.  I  had 
a  copy  of  The  Harbinger  given  me  a  little  while  ago 
by  somebody,  and  it  brought  back  that  whole  time  to 
me.  There  is  a  Park  Benjamin  now,  who  writes,  I 
find,  and  one  of  whose  stories,  The  Bombardment  of 
New  York  by  an  Iron-  Clad,  I  thought  mighty  good 
when  I  read  it.  But  now  my  quasi  contemporaries, 
besides  yourself,  are  Lowell,  nine  years  younger,  and 
just  now  ailing  in  a  way  that  makes  me  somewhat 
anxious,  and  Whittier,  two  years  older.  All  the  rest 
of  my  Boston  and  Saturday  Club  cronies  are  gone.  I 
miss  James  Freeman  Clarke  sadly;  he  had  grown 
to  be  a  great  power  in  our  community,  and  was  a 
favorite  in  society,  as  well  as  active  in  every  good 
work.  The  worst  of  him  was  that  his  incessant  in 
dustry  made  everybody  else  seem  lazy.  I  used  to 
scold  him  for  working  so  hard,  but  it  did  no  good ; 
he  had  to  work  himself  to  death.  At  the  Saturday 


84  OLIYER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

Club,  where  we  used  to  have  those  brilliant  gather 
ings,  there  is  hardly  a  face  of  the  old  times  except 
Judge  Hoar,  and  now  and  then  John  Dwight,  the 
musical  critic. 

I  am  living  cheerfully  enough  with  my  son  and  his 
wife,  go  to  concerts,  to  small  gatherings,  but  in  the 
main  live  very  quietly.  It  was  a  bold,  perhaps  a  rash 
thing  to  pledge  myself  (virtually)  to  a  series  of 
papers,  but  I  found  I  must  either  take  a  vow  of 
silence  or  begin  writing  at  once,  and  so  I  determined 
to  risk  it. 

My  eyes  are  giving  me  more  and  more  trouble,  yet 
you  see  I  can  write  legibly ;  but  I  have  much  of  my 
writing  done  for  me  by  a  young  woman  secretary. 

Good-by,  dear  John,  I  always  love  to  hear  from 
you. 

TO  ELIZABETH  STUART  PHELPS  WARD. 

BOSTON,  May  30, 1890. 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  WARD,  —  I  really  do  not  know 
whether  I  have  thanked  you  for  your  new  story  or 
not,  but  to  make  sure,  I  thank  you  now.  The  truth 
is,  I  am  in  arrears  with  my  correspondents;  my  table 
is  crowded  with  books  unthanked  for,  unacknow 
ledged  even,  and  of  course  unread.  My  secretary, 
who,  in  addition  to  her  work  at  the  Athenaeum,  has 
been  working  between  two  and  three  hours  a  day  for 
me,  looked  so  tired  yesterday  that  I  told  her  not  to 
come  again  until  Monday.  So  I  let  everything  else 
go  until  she  comes.  I  am  sometimes  almost  in  de 
spair  between  my  wish  to  make  some  due  acknowledg 
ment  to  the  friends  who  send  me  their  books  and 
write  me  their  warm-hearted  letters,  and  the  difficulty 
of  doing  them  any  kind  of  justice.  I  shall  have  to 


EUROPEAN  TRIP:    OLD  AGE  85 

carry  many  which  I  have  but  half  read,  and  some 
which  I  have  not  read  at  all,  to  the  country  with  me, 
and  try  to  find  time  to  read  what  I  have  only  looked 
rapidly  through  or  sometimes  only  glanced  at  here. 
I  hate  to  say  that  I  have  not  properly  read  your  story, 
but  there  is  so  much  study  in  it,  —  it  suggests  so  many 
historical  notes  which  one  wishes  to  make  as  he  goes 
along,  or  have  a  better  scholar  than  himself  make  for 
him,  that  it  is  not  enough  to  skim  it  for  the  story  like 
a  common  romance. 

I  write  with  effort,  as  I  am  afraid  you  perceive.  I 
see  no  peace  or  rest  for  me  without  giving  up  this 
everlasting  paying  of  tribute  to  strangers,  who  crowd 
upon  me  until  I  am  worn  out  with  their  questions, 
their  demands,  their  appeals,  and  feel  like  Christian 
with  his  burden  on  his  back,  with  hardly  spirit  enough 
left  to  throw  it  off.  I  must  tell  you  this,  for  you  were 
always  sympathetic,  and  will  understand  that,  with 
so  many  years  as  I  have  to  carry,  the  grasshopper  is 
beginning  to  be  a  burden.  More  and  more  I  am  try 
ing  to  reduce  my  correspondence  to  formulae,  and  my 
secretary  —  a  very  intelligent  and  well-trained  young 
lady  — 

(At  this  point  two  colored  persons  came  in  and 
took  a  piece  of  my  time  and  a  trifling  contribution  in 
money.) 

Well,  I  am  doing  my  best  to  keep  my  head  level 
in  the  midst  of  the  strain  that  is  put  upon  me,  and 
not  to  let  some  articles  I  am  writing  for  The  Atlantic 
betray  my  fatigue  and  lassitude.  A  letter  from  you 
would  do  me  good,  for  I  take  very  deep  interest  in  all 
that  relates  to  you  and  your  affairs.  It  rejoices  my 
heart  to  think  that  you  are  happy.  You  are  worth 
loving,  and  are  blessed  in  loving  and  being  loved. 


86  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

There  is  enough  of  you  left  over  to  provide  for  friend 
ship,  and  I  am  proud  to  count  myself  one  of  your 
friends. 

TO   MRS.    CAROLINE   L.    KELLOGG. 

BOSTON,  February  7,  1891. 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  KELLOGG,  —  Among  all  the  young 
girls  of  my  acquaintance  you  are  conspicuous  as  one 
of  the  best  correspondents  that  ever  warmed  my  old 
heart  with  her  lively  letters.  You  are  so  good,  too, 
not  to  expect  long  replies.  The  truth  is,  my  eyes  and 
my  hand  get  tired  with  the  scribbling  I  have  to  do, 
and  it  is  a  charity  the  good  angels  take  cognizance  of 
when  a  distant  friend  bestows  three  or  four  pages  on 
me,  knowing  he  or  she  will  only  get  one  in  return, 
and  perhaps  not  as  much  as  that. 

I  do  so  love  to  hear  about  dear  old  Pittsfield  and 
what  is  done  there,  and  who  does  it,  and  how  the  new 
city  gets  on,  and  all  the  rest.  What  have  I  got  to 
tell  you  ?  Nothing  but  what  the  Boston  papers  report 
—  if  you  ever  see  them.  I  know  very  little  of  what 
is  going  on.  I  go  to  the  Symphony  Rehearsals  and  to 
a  five  o'clock  tea  once  in  a  while.  I  dine  out  at  long 
intervals,  everybody  of  my  generation  being  dead, 
pretty  much,  and  the  two  generations  that  have  come 
up  since  my  day  having  their  own  circles,  their  own 
notions,  their  own  habits.  My  two  young  people  go 
to  the  theatre  together,  and  I  am  glad  to  have  them 
amuse  themselves ;  but  I  rarely  accompany  them. 
Once  in  a  while  we  all  dine  at  some  public  table  — 
Young's  or  Parker's  —  just  for  the  fun  of  it  and  by 
way  of  change.  Mrs.  Judge  knows  how  to  make  me 
comfortable,  and  does  it  wonderfully  well.  But  I 
grow  lazy,  as  I  ought  to.  I  would  make  a  business 


EUROPEAN  TRIP:    OLD  AGE  87 

of  studying  the  science  of  doing  nothing,  if  it  did  not 
come  to  me  naturally  enough.  Yet,  when  I  talk  about 
laziness,  I  am  really  kept  very  busy.  Here  am  I 
writing  to  you  at  4.30  P.M.  this  Saturday;  ten  to  one 
the  door-bell  will  ring  in  the  course  of  the  next  fifteen 
minutes,  and  a  schoolma'am  from  Oshkosh,  or  an 
author  from  Dakota,  or  a  poetess  from  Belchertown, 
will  come  in  and  interrupt  me,  and  punch  my  brain 
and  weary  my  flesh,  so  that  I  cannot  get  to  the  bottom 
of  this  page.  I  did  n't  believe  I  should  get  so  far  as 
this,  when  I  began.  I  make  my  secretary  do  as  much 
of  my  letter-writing  as  possible,  and  get  off  with  as 
few  words  as  I  possibly  can.  You  are  good — you 
won't  call  me  to  account  if  I  do  not  answer  your  de 
lightful  letters  as  they  deserve.  Supposing  I  should 
say,  next  time  I  get  one  from  you,  "  Yours  received, 
and  contents  noted.  Blessings  on  you,  blonde  cherub, 
for  your  charming  note  of  ten  pages  —  not  one  too 
many."  I  may  have  to  come  to  that;  but  do  you 
write,  just  the  same. 

Good-by,  dear  Mrs.  Kellogg,  brightest  of  your  sex. 
Remember  me  to  all  that  care  for  me. 

TO  JOHN   G.    WHITTIER. 

September  3,  1891. 

MY  DEAR  WHITTIER,  —  I  have  received  both  your 
kind  letter  and  your  welcome  telegram.  I  need  not 
apologize  for  this  brief  response,  —  you  know  all  about 
it.  I  can  only  say  that  the  avalanche  of  letters  and 
other  tokens  of  regard  has  fallen  —  nay,  is  still  falling 
—  and  I  have  survived  it.1 

I  am  longing  to  see  you,  and  if  you  are  coming  to 
Panvers  you  must  expect  me  to  drive  over  for  an  hour's 
^  This  refers,  of  course,  to  the  birthday  celebrations. 


88  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

talk  with  you.  As  I  have  often  said,  we  —  that  is, 
you  and  I,  now — are  no  longer  on  a  raft,  but  we  are 
on  a  spar. 

I  have  been  well  in  general  health,  but  have  had  a 
good  deal  of  asthma.  This  climate  is  too  cold  and 
rough  for  me,  but  I  have  found  much  that  is  delightful 
about  my  residence  here.  Perhaps  the  fault  is  not  so 
much  in  latitude  42°  as  in  cet.  82. 

I  trust  you  are  coming  to  Danvers,  and  that  you 
will  tell  me  as  soon  as  you  are  there. 

TO   MBS.    PRIESTLEY. 

BOSTON,  November  1,  1891. 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  PRIESTLEY,  —  Reading  and  writing 
letters  becomes  more  and  more  difficult,  but  I  am  not 
blind  by  any  means,  as  you  see  by  this  specimen  of 
my  handwriting.  Much  of  my  correspondence  is 
attended  to  by  an  intelligent  secretary,  who  could  in 
reality  answer  most  of  my  letters  just  as  well  as  I 
myself.  But  I  was  and  am  so  much  pleased  with  your 
letter  of  Oct.  llth  that  I  took  the  pen  from  the  pretty 
lady  who  writes  for  me,  determined  that  you  should 
have  a  few  words  direct  from  me,  not  filtered  through 
another  agency.  It  is  not  strange  that  at  threescore 
and  twenty,  and  two  over,  one  should  find  his  eyes 
more  or  less  dim,  and  his  ears  more  or  less  dull.  I 
like  to  write  out  the  figures  of  my  age  in  good  Roman 
characters,  thus :  LXXXII.  It  gives  them  a  patri 
archal  look  and  adds  to  what  Wordsworth  calls  "  the 
monumental  pomp  of  age."  I  would  not  have  said  so 
much  about  myself  if  I  did  not  know  that  you  and 
your  husband  took  and  take  a  kindly  interest  in  me 
and  my  conditions.  I  am  living  just  as  when  you 
were  here,  but  the  loss  of  my  daughter  is  not  one  to 


EUROPEAN  TRIP:    OLD   AGE  89 

be  made  good  in  this  life.  .  .  .  The  way  in  which  The 
Teacups  was  received  was  very  gratifying,  —  but  oh,  if 
only  those  whom  I  have  lost  could  have  shared  my  sat 
isfaction  !  I  do  not  expect  to  write  any  more  books, 
but  I  may  possibly  publish  a  magazine  article  now  and 
then.  I  am  so  glad  that  you  and  your  husband  liked 
my  last  book.  I  was  taken  by  surprise  when  my 
publishers  told  me  that  twenty  thousand  copies  had 
been  disposed  of  in  the  course  of  a  few  months  since 
its  publication.  The  pleasure  of  the  pocket  is  very 
well  in  its  way,  but  the  pleasure  of  the  heart^  when 
your  friends  tell  you  they  like  what  you  have  done,  is 
of  a  better  quality,  and  I  have  had  both  ;  your  letter 
was  one  of  the  most  welcome  evidences  of  my  having 
succeeded  with  the  few  whose  approval  is  so  much 
more  to  be  preserved  than  that  of  the  many.  .  .  . 

Thanking  you  most  cordially  for  your  very  kind 
letter,  I  am,  dear  Mrs.  Priestley, 

Always  affectionately  yours, 

OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES. 

TO  DR.    S.    WEIR   MITCHELL. 

October  2,  1893. 

MY  DEAR  MITCHELL,  —  I  was  exceedingly  sorry  to 
miss  your  visit  the  day  before  yesterday.  I  value  your 
friendship  as  highly  as  I  esteem  your  large  and  varied 
gifts  and  accomplishments,  —  and  I  have  few  friends 
left  whom  I  can  be  proud  of  as  well  as  attached  to. 
Think  of  it !  my  last  birthday  left  me  threescore  and 
twenty  with  four  years  added  to  the  ever-growing  heap. 
The  parenthesis,  which  enclosed  the  year  of  the  cen 
tury  I  have  already  counted,  leaves  but  small  margins 
between  1800  and  1900,  and  now  I  find  myself  almost 
alone  so  far  as  my  coevals  are  concerned.  There 


90  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

are,  however,  two  breakwaters  left  between  me  in  my 
quiet  harbor  and  the  great  unexplored  ocean  of  eter 
nity  :  my  daughter-in-law's  father,  Mr.  Dixwell,  who 
graduated  two  years  before  I  did,  and  that  dear  old 
nonagenarian,  Dr.  Furness,  who,  I  think,  will  be  kept 
alive  by  the  skill  of  you  Philadelphian  doctors  until 
he  becomes  a  centenarian. 

I  have  been  riding  the  high  horse  —  let  me  get  out 
of  the  saddle.  My  birthday  found  me  very  well  in 
body  and  I  think  in  mind.  If  I  am  in  the  twilight  of 
dementia  I  have  not  found  it  out.  I  am  only  reason 
ably  deaf ;  my  two  promising  cataracts  are  so  slow 
about  their  work  that  I  begin  to  laugh  at  them.  I 
discovered  one  and  studied  it,  as  it  was  reflected  in  my 
microscope,  more  than  a  dozen  years  ago,  and  I  can 
see  with  both  eyes  and  read  with  one ;  and  my  writer's 
cramp  is  very  considerate,  and  is  letting  me  write 
without  any  interference,  as  you  can  see. 

I  wrote  a  hymn  a  few  months  ago,  which  I  will  send 
you  if  I  can  find  a  copy  —  I  don't  believe  you  will 
say  it  "  smacks  of  apoplexy,"  like  the  archbishop's 
sermon.  If  it  does,  no  matter,' —  I  have  had  some  fair 
work  out  of  those  old  shrivelled  cerebral  convolutions. 

TO   MRS.    CAROLINE   L.    KELLOGG. 

BEVERLY  FARMS,  July  24,  1894. 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  KELLOGG,  —  Many  thanks  for  your 
good  long  letter.  /  do  not  write  such  as  that  nowa 
days,  but  when  I  write  at  all,  I  say  the  little  I  have 
to  say  in  as  few  words  as  possible.  What  with  eyes, 
and  fingers  that  get  crampy,  and  general  indisposition 
to  any  kind  of  work  —  the  laziness  of  slow  convales 
cence,  let  us  call  it,  —  I  am  but  a  poor  correspondent 
as  a  writer,  though  very  good  as  a  reader  —  of  letters 
like  yours. 


EUROPEAN  TRIP  :    OLD  AGE  91 

If  I  had  a  million  or  so  of  dollars,  and  forty  years 
instead  of  threescore  and  twenty-four,  and  could  take 
my  old  place  just  as  I  left  it,  I  should  like  to  be  your 
summer  neighbor.  But  my  habits  are  formed,  my 
ways  are  established,  and  I  am  a  pendulum  with  a 
very  short  range  of  oscillation.  I  send  you  one  of  my 
very  best  photographs,  with  all  kindest  regards. 

TO   CHARLES   DUDLEY   WARNER. 

BEVERLY  FARMS,  MASS.,  September  13, 1894. 

MY  DEAR  WARNER,  —  I  am  scattering  thanks  right 
and  left  —  manibus  plenis  —  from  hands  as  full  as 
they  can  hold ;  and  now  I  take  up  yours,  and  should 
like  to  answer  it  as  it  deserves  to  be  answered.  Your 
kind  expressions  are  very  grateful  to  me,  and  I  feel 
more  obliged  to  you,  who  must  have  enough  writing  to 
do  to  tire  you  out,  for  taking  the  trouble  to  say  those 
agreeable  and  most  welcome  words.  They  do  me 
good,  —  old  age  at  best  is  lonely,  and  the  process  of 
changing  one's  whole  suit  of  friends  and  acquaintances 
has  its  moments  when  one  feels  naked  and  shivers. 

I  have  this  forenoon  answered  a  letter  from  the 
grandson  of  a  classmate,  and  received  a  visit  from  the 
daughter  of  another  classmate,  the  "Sweet  Singer" 
of  the  class  of  '29.  So  you  see  I  have  been  contem 
plating  the  leafless  boughs  and  the  brown  turf  in  the 
garden  of  my  memory. 

Not  less  do  I  prize  my  newer  friendships,  and  it 
delights  me  to  sign  myself  — 

Always  affectionately  yours, 

OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES. 


CHAPTER   XVI 

DEATH 

DEATH  drew  near  to  Dr.  Holmes  with  steps  so 
slow,  so  gently  graded,  that  the  approach  was  hardly 
perceptible.  Body  and  mind  could  be  seen  to  be  los 
ing  something  in  vigor,  if  one  measured  by  intervals 
of  months,  but  hardly  by  shorter  periods.  He  was 
out  of  doors,  taking  his  usual  walks,  a  few  days  be 
fore  the  end  came;  he  was  up  and  about  the  house 
actually  to  the  last  day,  and  he  died  in  his  chair,  — 
painlessly,  as  so  humane  a  man  well  deserved  to  make 
his  escape  out  of  life,  —  on  October  7,  1894.  Two 
days  later  he  was  buried  from  King's  Chapel. 

The  expression  of  feeling  which  was  called  forth  by 
the  event  was  very  striking.  It  was  true  that  the 
Doctor  had  outlived  his  own  generation,  and  had  stood 
before  men's  eyes  for  several  years  past  at  a  point 
much  below  his  highest  excellence.  Yet  these  facts 
did  not  seem  in  any  degree  to  weaken  the  sentiments 
of  admiration  and  affection  towards  him ;  the  world 
remembered  him  in  his  prime,  and  thought  of  him  at 
his  best.  It  was  singular  to  note  how  strong  a  per 
sonal  feeling  there  was  in  all  the  utterances  of  regret. 
I  sent  to  a  "press-cutting  agency"  for  the  newspaper 
notices,  and  thus  gathered  and  glanced  over,  more  or 
less  carefully,  probably  not  less  than  three  or  four  thou 
sand  "clippings,"  which  must  have  represented  not 
only  a  very  large  percentage  of  the  cities  and  towns, 


DEATH  93 

but  a  goodly  proportion  of  the  villages,  of  the  United 
States,  with  a  great  number  from  England  and  some 
from  France  and  Germany.  I  doubt  whether  in  all 
this  number  fifty  could  have  been  found  which  did 
not  call  the  Doctor  either  "genial"  or  "kindly."  A 
verdict  from  so  numerous  a  jury  was  conclusive.  It 
was  noteworthy  how  the  world  had  become  so  pro 
foundly  penetrated  by  the  impression.  It  could  not 
be  explained  by  saying  that  the  Doctor  had  attacked 
the  inhumanity  of  the  religious  creeds,  for  others 
had  done  this;  or  by  saying  that  he  gave  constant 
utterance  to  amiable  sentiments  in  his  writings,  for 
this  also  had  been  done  by  others,  even  to  the  point 
of  mawkishness.  But  in  some  way  or  another  his 
writings  were  so  impregnated  by  an  atmosphere  of 
humaneness  that  it  rose  from  them  like  a  moral  fra 
grance,  and  the  gracious  exhalation  permeated  the 
consciousness  of  every  reader.  His  writings  had 
been  full  of  sympathy  with  his  fellows,  —  his  ship 
mates  on  board  this  vessel  of  the  earth,  as  he  once  ex 
pressed  it ;  and  it  was  commonly  felt  that  this  was  no 
comradeship  of  words  only,  but  a  genuine  expression 
of  his  true  nature.  He  said  what  all  felt,  when  he 
wrote :  "  I  have  told  my  story.  I  do  not  know  what 
special  gifts  have  been  granted  or  denied  me;  but 
this  I  know,  that  I  am  like  so  many  others  of  my 
fellow-creatures,  that  when  I  smile,  I  feel  as  if  they 
must ;  when  I  cry,  I  think  their  eyes  fill ;  and  it  al 
ways  seems  to  me  that  when  I  am  most  truly  myself 
I  come  nearest  to  them,  and  am  surest  of  being  lis 
tened  to  by  the  brothers  and  sisters  of  the  larger 
family  into  which  I  was  born  so  long  ago."  Yet, 
withal,  he  had  been  a  strenuous  and  earnest  writer, 
trenchant  when  occasion  demanded,  and  had  led  many 


94  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

a  gallant  assault  on  entrenched  prejudice.  Remem 
bering  this,  it  is  interesting  to  observe  how  the  cler 
gymen  now  spoke  of  him,  showing  a  liberal  feeling, 
a  Christian  charity,  which  was  fully  as  creditable  to 
those  who  gave  as  to  him  who  received  the  generous 
laudation.  Even  the  Catholics  forgot  that  he  had 
said  that  it  was  "Rome  or  Reason,"  the  "three-hilled 
city  against  the  seven-hilled  city;"  they  ignored  for 
a  moment  the  "irrepressible  conflict"  which  he  had 
proclaimed,  and  gave  him  fair  words  of  praise.  So, 
too,  did  some  of  the  Orthodox  persuasion.  How 
different  this  from  what  would  have  been  the  case 
had  he  died  some  thirty  years  before,  with  The  Auto 
crat  and  The  Professor  and  Elsie  Venner  still  fresh 
productions.  Then  the  religious  world  would  have 
thought  that  a  very  dangerous  writer  had  been  timely 
and  wisely  removed  from  his  work  of  mischief. 

Of  course  it  was  not,  in  fact,  Dr.  Holmes  who  had 
worked  the  general  change  of  feeling,  of  which  this 
good-will,  extended  to  himself,  was  only  a  striking 
manifestation.  There  had  been  going  on  a  great  tidal 
movement,  which  would  have  advanced  without  him, 
without  Emerson,  without  any  individual.  But  he, 
being  a  man  of  strong  intellect  and  sympathetic  tem 
perament,  had  been  one  of  the  first  to  feel  the  new 
impulse ;  he  had  been  among  the  few  who  formed  the 
aggressive  apex  of  the  advance ;  he  had  shocked  cher 
ished  beliefs,  and  had  taken  the  consequences  in  the 
shape  of  abuse  of  himself  and  misrepresentation  of  his 
position;  thus  he  had  earned  a  right  to  receive  that 
sort  of  praise  and  recognition  which  is  accorded  to 
,all  the  so-called  leaders  of  reform,  —  leaders  but  rarely 
creators  of  public  sentiment.  History  indicates  that 
the  present  age  is  instinct  with  such  a  spirit  of  hu- 


DEATH  95 

maneness  as  has  never  been  known  in  any  other  civili 
zation,  or  in  any  previous  stage  of  our  own  civiliza 
tion.  There  is  not  found  in  contemporary  literature 
any  other  writer  reaching  so  wide  a  circle  of  readers 
as  Dr.  Holmes  did,  who  was  quite  equal  to  him  as 
an  exponent  or  preacher  of  this  development.  Like 
Abou  Ben  Adhem,  he  loved  his  fellow-men  ;  and  when 
I  was  young  all  the  school-children  knew,  what  I  hope 
all  school-children  of  the  present  day  likewise  know, 
that  in  the  final  competition  "Ben  Adhem's  name  led 
all  the  rest." 

Other  reflections  also  are  aroused  by  the  words 
which  were  spoken  and  written  of  Dr.  Holmes  after 
his  death.  There  were  interesting  and  appreciative 
articles  in  some  of  the  American  magazines ;  but  the 
perfunctory  notices  of  the  newspaper  press  of  the 
country  were  for  the  most  part  discreditable  to  our 
journalism.  In  England  his  fame  received  more  ade 
quate  recognition,  and  several  weekly  and  daily  papers 
had  carefully  written  articles,  expressing  generous 
praise,  which  was  the  more  valuable  because  it  was 
critical  and  discriminating.  The  high  estimation  in 
which  the  Doctor  was  held  in  England  deserves  men 
tion,  alike  in  justice  to  him  and  to  the  Englishmen. 
Among  the  many  complaints  which  we  register  against 
the  Briton,  a  prominent  one  has  been  a  disregard  or 
contempt  upon  his  part  for  our  literary  productions. 
But  though  Dr.  Holmes  uttered  so  exclusively  the 
thought,  the  sentiment,  and  the  life  of  New  England, 
and  presented  the  scenery,  the  characters,  the  humor 
of  that  small  region  so  conspicuously  that  the  sound 
est  criticism  to  which  he  was  open  was  that  of  excessive 
localism,  yet  the  Englishmen  held  him  in  very  great 
popularity,  and  now  showed  for  his  memory  as  much 


96  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

feeling  and  honor  as  his  own  countrymen  did,  if  not 
even  more.  This  truly  indicated  that  he  had  suc 
ceeded  in  drawing  the  real  humankind ;  it  indicated, 
too,  that  when  we  send  to  England  first-rate  books 
they  will  be  read  with  appreciation. 

Punch  had  some  lines  so  admirable  that  this  vol 
ume  would  be  incomplete  without  them. 

"THE  AUTOCRAT." 
OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES.    BORN  1809,  DIED  OCTOBER  7, 1894. 

"  The  Last  Leaf  !  "    Can  it  be  true, 
We  have  turned  it,  and  on  you, 

Friend  of  all  ? 

That  the  years  at  last  have  power  ? 
That  life's  foliage  and  its  flower 

Fade  and  fall  ? 

Was  there  one  who  ever  took 
From  its  shelf,  by  chance,  a  book 

Penned  by  you, 

But  was  fast  your  friend  for  life, 
With  one  refuge  from  its  strife 

Safe  and  true  ? 

Even  gentle  Elia's  self 

Might  be  proud  to  share  that  shelf, 

Leaf  to  leaf, 

With  a  soul  of  kindred  sort, 
Who  could  bind  strong  sense  and  sport 

In  one  sheaf. 

From  that  Boston  breakfast-table, 
Wit  and  wisdom,  fun  and  fable, 

Radiated 

Through  all  English-speaking  places. 
When  were  Science  and  the  Graces 

So  well  mated  ? 

Of  sweet  singers  the  most  sane, 
Of  keen  wits  the  most  humane, 
Wide,  yet  clear. 


DEATH  97 

Like  the  blue,  above  us  bent, 
Giving  sense  and  sentiment 
Each  its  sphere  ; 

With  a  manly  breadth  of  soul, 
And  a  fancy  quaint  and  droll, 

Ripe  and  mellow. 
With  a  virile  power  of  "  hit," 
Finished  scholar,  poet,  wit, 

And  good  fellow  ! 

Sturdy  patriot,  and  yet 

True  world's  citizen  !     Regret 

Dims  our  eyes 

As  we  turn  each  well-thumbed  leaf ; 
Yet  a  glory  'midst  our  grief 

Will  arise. 

Years  your  spirit  could  not  tame, 
And  they  will  not  dim  your  fame  ; 

England  joys 

In  your  songs,  all  strength  and  ease, 
And  the  "  dreams  "  you  "  wrote  to  please 

Gray-haired  boys." 

And  of  such  were  you  not  one  ? 
Age  chilled  not  your  fire  of  fun. 

Heart  alive 

Makes  a  boy  of  a  gray  bard, 
Though  his  years  be,  "  by  the  card," 

Eighty-five  ! 

Even  the  French  press  forgot,  or  forgave  —  or  pos 
sibly,  let  us  admit,  did  not  know  —  the  expressions  of 
repulsion  which  Dr.  Holmes  had  uttered  against  their 
modern  nasty  literature,  and  they  praised  him  very 
handsomely.  It  is  difficult  to  imagine  that  the  French 
men  could  really  have  made  much  out  of  his  writings, 
yet  IS  Echo  de  la  Semaine  had  a  long,  a  very  appre 
ciative,  even  sympathetic,  article  about  him.  From 

VOL.  n. 


98  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

another  sheet  I  must  cut  two  paragraphs,  the  one 
because  it  is  amusing,  the  other  because  it  shows  such 
a  fine  ranking  of  much-abused  New  England :  — 

"II  se  distinguait  par  un  heureux  melange  d'humeur 
et  de  sentiment.  II  a  trouve  bien  des  mots  qui  reste- 
ront.  C'est  lui  qui,  plaisamment,  baptisa  Boston 
Tessieu  du  monde.  II  appelait  les  tramways  a  con- 
ducteur  electrique  le  train  du  manche  a  balai  —  nous 
dirions,  je  crois,  de  la  queue  de  rat  —  jeu  de  mots  un 
peu  difficile  a  transporter  en  fran^ais." 

"La  mort  de  Holmes  marque  la  fin  d'une  brillante 
periode  d'ecrivains  a  laquelle  appartenaient,  a  cote 
de  Longfellow  et  de  Lowell,  Whittier,  le  poete  quaker 
de  1' emancipation  des  noirs,  le  philosophe  Emerson, 
et  tant  d'autres  noms  eminents  que  nous  pourrions 
citer  sans  sortir  de  la  Nouvelle-Angleterre,  cet  etroit 
berceau  de  la  civilisation  et  du  genie  americain,  ce 
petit  point  sur  le  littoral  de  FAtlantique  qui  est  comme 
Fame  de  la  nation." 

At  the  same  time  a  French  translation  of  "The 
Last  Leaf  "  appeared,  not  in  rhyme,  but  preserving 
the  measure  and  music  of  the  original  with  great  skill, 
and  altogether  seeming  so  clever  and  interesting  that 
I  venture  to  preserve  it  here :  — 

LA  DERNIERE  FEUILLE. 

Je  1'ai  vu,  une  fois  ddja, 

comme  il  passait  devant  la  porte; 

et  de  nouveau 

les  pierres  du  pave*  re'sonnent, 
quand  il  frappe,  en  chancelant,  le  sol 

de  sa  canne. 

On  dit  que,  dans  son  printemps, 
avant  que  la  faucille  du  Temps 
Peut  e'branche', 


Facsimile  of  an  Autograph  Copy  of  The  Last  Leaf 


/^ 


" 


#rL4 
'/ 


e^j 


L 


DEATH  99 

c'e'tait  le  plus  bel  homme  que  vit 
le  Crieur  dans  sa  ronde 
par  la  ville. 

Mais  maintenant  il  marche  dans  les  rues, 
jetant  sur  tout  ce  qu'il  rencontre  un  coup  d'oeil 

triste  et  morne  ; 
et  il  secoue  sa  tete  ddbile 
avec  un  air  qui  semble  dire  : 

"  Elles  sont  parties  I  " 

Les  marbres  moussus  reposent 
sur  les  levres  qu'il  pressa 

dans  leur  fleur; 

et  les  noms  qu'il  aimait  a  entendre 
sont,  depuis  mainte  amide,  grave's 

sur  la  tombe. 

Ma  grand'maman  disait 

(pauvre  vieille  dame  !  elle  est  morte 

il  y  a  longtemps  .  .  .  ) 
qu'il  avait  le  nez  aquilin, 
et  que  sa  joue  e'tait  comme  une  rose 

dans  la  neige. 

Mais  maintenant  son  nez  s'est  aminci 
et  s'appuie  sur  son  menton, 

comme  une  bdquille; 
et  une  bosse  courbe  son  dos, 
et  une  felure  melancolique 

est  dans  son  rire. 

Je  sais  que  c'est  un  pe'che' 

de  ma  part  d'etre  ici  a  ricaner 

de  lui  sur  ma  chaise  ; 
mais  le  vieux  chapeau  a  trois  cornea, 
et  les  culottes,  et  tout  le  reste, 

sont  si  baroques ! 

Et  si  je  vivais  assez  pour  etre 
la  derniere  feuille  rested  a  1'arbre 
au  printemps, 


100  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

qu'a  leur  tour  les  gens  sourient 
du  vieux  rameau  d£laiss6 
ou  je  in'attache  ! 

It  used  to  be  the  duty  of  the  biographer  who  wrote 
of  a  person  whom  he  had  known  well  to  close  his 
memoir  by  giving  some  guidance  concerning  portraits. 
But  photography  has  nearly  or  quite  done  away  with 
all  occasion  for  this.  Dr.  Holmes 's  face  has  certainly 
become  familiar ;  and  every  one  knows  also  that  he  was 
of  short  stature,  and  only  in  his  later  years  somewhat 
inclined  to  be  stout.  I  should  say  to  any  inquirer: 
Get  the  photograph  which  pleases  you  best,  and  you 
can't  go  far  wrong;  the  photographs  are  almost  by 
necessity  good.  But  distrust  the  engravings  which 
decorate  (?)  sundry  volumes;  I  have  seen  some  which 
were  not  so  bad  as  one  would  expect  them  to  be ;  but 
it  is  safe  to  rule  them  out  of  competition  with  the 
sun-pictures.  The  Doctor  took  a  great  deal  of  interest 
in  his  own  personal  aspect,  both  of  face  and  figure, 
and,  having  a  passion  for  physical  perfection,  he 
was  not  altogether  satisfied  with  what  Nature  had 
done  for  him.  "Very  ugly,  but  horribly  true,"  he  re 
marked  of  one  of  the  likenesses;  and  once,  when  his 
publishers  wanted  a  frontispiece,  he  said:  "Take  out 
the  wrinkles !  Every  man,  who  is  going  to  show  his 
face  to  people  who  don't  know  him,  has  a  right  to 
show  it  at  its  best."  Unfortunately,  when  the  pho 
tographer  or  engraver  takes  out  wrinkles,  he  takes  out 
character  and  expression  with  them.  It  may  be  sus 
pected  that  the  Doctor  had  himself  in  mind  when  he 
made  the  Poet  at  the  Breakfast-Table  remark :  "  His 
personal  appearance  was  not  singularly  prepossessing ; 
inconspicuous  in  stature  and  unattractive  in  features," 
etc.  But  this  would  have  been  an  unduly  severe  judg- 


DEATH  101 

ment,  which  no  one  else  would  have  passed  upon  him. 
His  singular  animation  was  such  that  one  hardly  car 
ried  away  any  distinct  impression  of  the  lines  of  his 
face;  and  there  was  an  activity  in  his  movements 
which  prevented  one  from  thinking  of  him  as  at  all 
physically  insignificant,  nor  in  truth  was  he  so.  He 
said  some  things  of  himself,  so  good-tempered  and 
amusing,  that  I  yield  to  the  temptation  to  print  them. 

TO   DR.    FORDYCE    BARKER. 

BOSTON,  February  27,  1871. 

MY  DEAR  DR.  BARKER,  —  I  have  got  both  your 
kind  letters,  and  my  mind  is  at  ease  about  what  I  am 
to  do  when  I  arrive  at  New  York.  Country  folks 
are  so  bewildered,  you  know ! 

My  plan  is  to  start  on  Wednesday  morning,  as  I 
told  you,  and  to  return  on  Saturday,  if  you  will  keep 
me  so  long. 

If  your  son  comes  to  the  station,  please  tell  him  to 
look  about  until  he  sets  his  eyes  on  the  most  anxious, 
inquisitive,  puzzled-looking  passenger  of  the  whole 
crew,  very  likely  seated  on  the  end  of  a  valise  (con 
taining  a  manuscript  and  a  change  or  two  of  linen), 
or  hanging  on  to  a  carpet-bag,  and  rolling  his  eyes 
about  in  all  directions  to  find  the  one  who  is  finding 
him.  Five  feet  five  (not  four  as  some  have  pretended) 
in  height.  Not  so  far  from  the  grand  climacteric  as 
he  was  ten  years  ago.  If  there  is  any  question  about 
his  identity,  a  slight  scar  on  his  left  arm  .  .  .  will  at 
once  satisfy  the  young  gentleman.  On  being  recog 
nized,  I  shall  rush  into  his  arms,  and  attend  him  any 
whither  in  perfect  confidence. 


102  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 


TO   PAUL   H.    HAYNE. 

BOSTON,  January  24,  1873. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  HAYNE,  —  I  am  very  happy  to 
help  you  in  your  pleasant  project  of  getting  your 
friends'  pictures  about  you  in  place  of  their  presence, 
as  you  cannot  have  that.  I  had  a  photograph  taken 
a  few  months  ago  by  one  of  our  best  artists,  which  on 
the  whole  I  consider  more  satisfactory  than  any  that 
has  been  taken  of  late.  At  the  same  time  it  is  only 
fair  to  say  that  I  do  not  pride  myself  particularly  on 
any  show  that  my  portraits  make.  That  is  not  my 
fault,  however,  and  I  look  the  camera  in  the  face  as 
good-naturedly  as  if  it  were  going  to  make  an  Adonis 
of  me. 

TO   DR.    S.    WEIR   MITCHELL. 

December  23,  1874. 

MY  DEAR  DR.  MITCHELL,  — 

"Please  find,"  as  those  horrid  business  letters  say, 
the  last  photograph,  or  one  of  the  last,  that  I  have 
had  taken.  The  photograph  is  a  fair  portrait  enough; 
but  I  do  not  think  my  face  is  a  flattering  likeness  of 
myself.  Such  as  it  is,  however,  you  are  most  wel 
come  to  the  picture,  and  if  you  do  not  like  it,  you 
can  shut  it  up  in  Paley's  Natural  Theology  or  Sam 
Jackson's  Principles  of  Organic  Medicine,  if  you 
happen  to  have  a  copy  of  either  of  these  books,  and 
it  will  be  safe  from  inspection  for  one  generation  at 
least. 

TO   JAMES   RUSSELL    LOWELL. 

BOSTON,  March  18, 1882. 

MY  DEAR  JAMES,  —  I  do  not  see  why  I  should  be 
writing  to  you  just  as  if  you  were  at  a  distance  from 


DEATH  103 

me.  Here  you  are  on  my  table  in  the  shape  of  Un 
derwood's  Memoir -,  embalmed,  living,  in  fragrant  ad 
jectives  as  sweet  as  the  spices  that  were  wrapped  up 
with  the  mummy  of  the  grandest  of  the  Pharaohs. 
There  you  are  in  a  large  reproduction  of  Mrs. 

M 's   painting.     There  you  are  again,   in  plain 

sight  as  I  sit,  in  the  group  where  I,  too,  have  the 
honor  of  figuring.  I  have  been  constantly  reminded 
of  you  of  late  by  the  daily  presence  of  that  same  lady, 

Mrs.  M ,  who  had  a  fancy  for  painting  me,  too, 

to  which  I  felt  bound  to  yield,  although  I  have  always 
considered  my  face  a  convenience  rather  than  an  orna 
ment.  I  found  her  a  very  pleasant  little  lady,  and  I 
think  she  has  made  a  picture  which  looks  very  much 
like  you.  The  effect  is  very  Titian-like,  and  you 
might  pass  for  a  Doge  —  (do  not  read  it  Dodge)  —  of 
Venice  —  (not  Salem).1 

TO  MRS.  E.  S.   SINCLAIR. 

September  23,  1882. 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  SINCLAIR,  — 

I  am  very  glad  you  liked  my  photograph;  it  is 
certainly  less  disagreeable  than  some  I  have  seen  — 
but  Nature  did  not  ask  my  advice  about  my  features, 
and  I  take  what  was  given  me  and  am  glad  it  is  no 
worse.  .  .  . 

"A  good  caricature,  which  seizes  the  prominent 
features  and  gives  them  the  character  Nature  hinted, 
but  did  not  fully  carry  out,  is  a  work  of  genius." 
Thus  Dr.  Holmes  wrote  in  the  Hundred  Days,  re- 

1  A  local  jest ;  the  Dodge  family  is  almost  a  clan  at  Salem, 
Massachusetts. 


104  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

membering  doubtless  that  he  himself  had  once  served 
as  an  inspiration  to  some  sketcher  gifted  with  genius 
of  this  kind ;  for  Vanity  Fair  (London)  had  once  pub 
lished  a  full-page  caricature  of  him,  —  one  of  its  fa 
mous  series  of  caricatures.  It  was  grotesque,  and  yet 
it  certainly  was  extremely  clever,  with  so  singular  a 
life-likeness  that  many  of  his  acquaintance  declared 
that  it  brought  him  before  them  better  than  the  graver 
portraits.  He  was  not  less  amused  and  pleased  by  it 
than  were  his  friends,  for  after  all  one  is  often  philo 
sophical  in  paying  a  fine  which  is  based  on  one's  own 
fame.  In  this  light  he  regarded  the  drollery,  and 
laughed  good-naturedly. 

When  Dr.  Holmes  was  about  starting  upon  his  trip 
to  England,  in  1886,  his  friend  Eev.  James  Freeman 
Clarke,  D.  D.,  addressed  to  him  some  stanzas  of  fare 
well.  The  Doctor's  expression  concerning  them,  in 
his  note  of  thanks,  makes  it  appropriate  to  close  these 
volumes  with  them. 

TO  JAMES   FREEMAN   CLARKE. 

April  26,  1886. 

MY  DEAH  JAMES,  —  I  cannot  tell  how  sweetly 
this  sounded  to  me  and  now  reads  —  dim,  a  little, 
with  those  half -formed  "natural  drops  "that  Milton 
speaks  of. 

Do  you  know  what  I  want  to  ask?  Will  you  not 
print  these  dear  lines  as  my  envoi  ? 

The  lines  were  :  — 

"  May  all  good  thoughts  go  with  thee  from  this  shore, 
All  kindly  greetings  meet  thee  on  the  other  ; 
Bring  all  they  can  they  will  not  give  thee  more 
Than  we  send  with  thee,  Poet,  Friend,  and  Brother. 


DEATH  105 

"  While  thou  art  absent  we  will  say,  « How  often 
The  gloom  from  off  our  hearts  his  smile  has  lifted  ; 
How  well  he  knew  our  harder  mood  to  soften, 
With  gleams  of  sunlight  where  the  storm  clouds  drifted  ! 

«  And  how,  when  that  o'er  whelming  weight  of  duty 
Pressed  upon  Lincoln's  weary  hand  and  brain, 
Our  Holmes's  song  of  tenderness  and  beauty 
Gave  that  worn  heart  a  moment's  rest  again  ! 

«  Go,  then,  dear  friend,  by  all  good  hopes  attended  ; 
To  mother-England  go,  our  carrier-dove, 
Saying  that  this  great  race,  from  hers  descended, 
Sends  in  its  Holmes  an  Easter-gift  of  love.'  " 


LETTERS 

I.    TO  JAMES   RUSSELL   LOWELL 

BOSTON,  November  10,  1848. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  am  not  a  fair  judge  —  because 
I  have  some  fair  words  among  my  betters  whom  you 
speak  of.  I  attribute  not  the  least  value  to  my  opin 
ion.  But  I  think  it l  is  capital  —  crammed  full  and 
rammed  down  hard  —  powder  (lots  of  it)  —  shot  — 
slugs  —  bullets  —  very  little  wadding,  and  that  is  gun- 
cotton —  all  crowded  into  a  rusty  looking  sort  of  a 
blunderbuss  barrel  as  it  were  —  capped  with  a  percus 
sion  preface  —  and  cocked  with  a  title-page  as  apropos 
as  a  wink  to  a  joke. 

I  did  of  course  what  everybody  else  does  —  looked 
to  see  if  my  own  name  was  in  the  volume  for  good  or 
evil,  —  but  in  doing  so  I  saw  enough  to  make  me 
begin  and  go  straight  through  it,  —  a  thing  I  am  not 
prone  to.  There  is  a  vast  deal  of  fun  in  it  —  plenty 
of  good  jokes,  —  but  better  than  that,  there  is  a  force 
and  delicacy  of  mental  diagnosis  (to  speak  profession 
ally)  that  really  surprised  me.  Carlyle  &  Emerson, 
for  instance  —  the  distinctions  are  subtile  enough  for 
Duns  Scotus,  yet  not  fantastic.  I  thought  I  could  see 
meaning  in  every  little  scintilla  of  a  trait  you  pointed 
out ;  but  it  would  have  been  a  blank  had  not  that 
wonderful  comet-seeker  of  yours  —  your  fine  achro- 
1  The  reference  is  to  The  Fable  for  Critics. 


108  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

matic  apprehension  —  directed  my  poor  intellectual 
lenses  to  it. 

Miranda  is  too  good.  I  don't  know  these  people 
much,  but  I  supposed  she  posed  for  our  old  towns- 
woman,  that  used  to  be,  —  in  the  eocene  period,  when 
I  was  young.  I  have  heard  of  a  peg  to  hang  a  thought 
on,  but  if  I  want  a  thought  to  hang  a  Peg  on  I  shall 
know  where  to  go  in  future.  .  .  . 

I  shall  send  you  my  little  book  —  which  you  may 
have  seen  advertised  —  in  a  few  days.  I  liked  a  let 
ter  you  once  wrote  me,  very  much,  but  I  am  afraid  it 
is  of  no  use  to  bother  yourself  with  me.  I  can't  be 
one  of  the  "  earnest "  folks  if  I  try  ever  so  hard.  I 
see  so  many  bright  facets  in  this  crystalline  order  of 
things  that  I  should  like  to  set  the  whole  of  it,  if  I 
could,  in  a  ring  of  verse,  and  play  it  on  my  finger  in 
the  sunshine  of  the  "  Infinite  Soul  "  forever  and  ever. 
But  you  come  in  with  your  pumice  and  rub  the  polish 
off  of  one  surface  after  another,  —  first  the  convivial 
facet  with  the  temperance  sand  and  scrubbing-cloths  ; 
then  the  patriotic  facet  with  the  abolition  grit ;  and 
so  of  the  rest.  However,  I  am  thinking  of  what  you 
said  ever  so  long  ago,  and  perhaps  you  would  agree 
with  me  now,  that  it  is  easier  to  beget  a  new  poet,  or 
adopt  one  at  the  House  of  Industry,  than  it  is  to  put 
new  viscera  —  heart,  brain,  nerves,  etc.  —  into  the 
organization  of  an  old  one.1 

I  think  I  understand  you,  and  I  know  you  under 
stand  me.  There  are  a  thousand  things  I  admire  in 
your  intellect,  and  I  am  only  too  well  pleased  that 
such  an  old-fashioned  versifying  squaretoes  as  myself 
has  done  anything  which  pleased  you.  In  the  little 
book  I  spoke  of  I  have  not  been  very  squeamish.  I 
1  Referring  to  letter  to  Lowell,  ante,  i.  295. 


TO  JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL  109 

have  printed  my  jolly  verses,  —  on  second  thought 
I  don't  feel  afraid  they  will  hurt  anybody,  and  I  know 
they  will  please  some. 

As  for  your  poem,  to  come  back  to  it,  it  speaks  for 
itself  that  you  will  not  let  yourself  be  snuffed  out  as 

Keats  did,  if  the  American  Dick and  the  rest 

should  abuse  you  for  it.  It  is  fun,  after  all,  to  see  a 
man  that  is  not  afraid  of  this  or  that  little  squibbing 
blackguard,  — and  I  do  think  —  excuse  the  expression 
—  but  I  do  think  you  have  given  them  beans. 

Hoping  that  you  will  live  a  great  many  years  to 
whack  pretension,  to  praise  without  jealousy,  to  sepa 
rate  the  sham  from  the  real,  but  above  all  to  throw 
your  own  manly  and  gentle  nature  into  the  graceful 
forms  of  art, 

I  am  yours  most  truly. 


8  MONTGOMERY  PLACE,  January  14,  1849. 
I  thank  you,  my  dear  sir,  very  sincerely  for  the 
Vision.  It  is  a  little  book,  it  is  thin ;  there  is  not 
much  more  thickness  to  it  than  to  a  consecrated  wafer, 
but  one  may  get  more  out  of  it  than  from  many  a 
whole  loaf.  Many  parts  of  it  are  eminently  poeti 
cal,  and  the  whole  story  is  a  pure,  beautiful,  entire 
conception.  To  my  ear  it  wants  finish  in  some  por 
tions,  and  is  marred  by  certain  incongruities,  one  or 
two  of  which  I  will  mention.  Thus,  the  picture  part 
of  the  poem  is  Yankee  in  its  effect,  and  so  far  out  of 
keeping.  The  dandelion,  for  instance,  is  an  excellent 
herb,  poetically  and  gastronomically,  but  has  no  par 
ticular  business  in  a  poem  which  means  to  carry  you 
as  far  from  Cambridge  and  1849  as  may  be. 


110  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

Again  — 

"  As  the  hang-bird  is  to  the  elm-tree  bough." 

What  propriety  in  introducing  the  Baltimore  oriole 
in  the  tableau  of  that  old  feudal  castle  ?  There  are 
"  objective "  instances,  as  the  Rev.  Homer  Wilbur's 
critic  would  say,  of  a  want  of  unity,  which  shows  itself 
"  subjectively "  in  various  other  passages,  where  the 
old  story,  which  should  have  been  brocaded  through 
out  with  old-world  and  old-time  imagery,  is  overlaid 
with  fire-new  philanthropizing  and  philosophizing  gen 
eralities. 

You  laugh  at  the  old  square-toed  heroic  sometimes, 
and  I  must  retort  upon  the  rattlety-bang  sort  of  verse 
in  which  you  have  indulged.  I  read  a  good  deal  of  it 
as  I  used  to  go  over  the  kittle-y-benders  when  a  boy, 
horribly  afraid  of  a  slump  every  time  I  cross  one  of 
its  up-and-down  hump-backed  lines.  I  don't  mean 
that  it  cannot  be  done,  or  that  you  have  not  often 
done  it  so  as  to  be  readable  and  musical;  but  think  of 
having  to  read  a  mouthful  of  such  lines  as  this  :  — 

"  For  the  frost's  [?]  swift  shuttles  its  shroud  had  spun." 

There  is  only  one  man  that  can  read  such  lines, 
and  that  is  my  quondam  student  Mr.  George  Cheyne 
Shattuck  Choate,  whose  apprenticeship  in  learning  to 
pronounce  his  own  name  has  made  him  a  match  for 
all  sorts  of  cacoepy. 

Now  as  to  what  pleases  me  most,  —  for  one  likes  to 
know  how  each  different  taste  is  affected. 

Not  the  picture  of  June  —  it  has  great  beauties  but 
some  of  the  discords  I  have  spoken  of  —  not  the  de 
parting  knight  (paragraph  III.  p.  11)  —  it  is  bold, 
spirited,  eminently  picturesque,  but  exaggerated ;  not 


TO  JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL  111 

the  leper's  speech  (p.  13),  which  reminds  me  too  much 
of  some  of  our  "  transcendental  "  friends. 

The  brook  is  the  most  ingenious  and  exquisitely 
finished  piece  of  pen  fancy  work  I  have  seen  for  a 
long  time. 

"  Builds  out  its  piers  of  ruddy  light "  struck  me  as 
a  fine  expression.  But  paragraph  III.  of  part  second 
is  eminently  beautiful,  —  the  thought  is  natural  and 
striking,  the  painting  vivid,  and  the  personification  of 
the  little  spring  altogether  charming.  Paragraph 
VI.  of  the  same  part  is  very  striking,  and  the  moral 
finely  enucleated,  only  as  it  seems  to  me  the  knight  is 
a  little  too  good  to  allow  Giles  and  Hodge  to  come 
into  his  dressing-room  at  all  times  without  knocking. 

You  will  not  find  fault  with  me  for  the  freedom  of 
my  criticisms,  I  am  quite  sure,  but  feel  assured  that 
a  few  blemishes,  as  they  seem  to  me,  do  not  lead  me 
to  overlook  the  many  beauties  in  which  the  poem 
abounds. 


164  CHARLES  STREET,  November  26,  1868. 
(Thanksgiving  Day.) 

MY  DEAR  JAMES,  —  I  have  been  reading  your 
poems  —  those  I  knew  so  well  over  again  —  those  I 
did  not  know,  to  find  them  worthy  of  their  companion 
ship. 

The  world  is  with  you  now,  and  I  can  add  very 
little  to  the  welcome  and  the  honors  with  which  your 
new  volume  will  be  received.  I  cannot  help,  however, 
saying  how  much  I  am  impressed  by  the  lusty  man 
hood  of  your  nature  as  shown  in  the  heroic  vigor  of 
your  verse ;  by  the  reach  and  compass  of  your  thought ; 
by  the  affluence,  the  felicity,  and  the  subtilty  of  your 
illustrations,  which  weave  with  the  thoughts  they 


112  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

belong  to  as  golden  threads  through  the  tissue  of 
which  they  form  part ;  and  perhaps  most  of  all  by  that 
humanity  in  its  larger  sense,  which  belongs  to  you 
beyond  any  of  those  with  whom  your  name  is  often 
joined.  While  I  have  been  reading  these  grave  and 
noble  poems  I  have  forgotten  that  you  were  a  wit  and 
a  humorist,  —  that  you  were  a  critic  and  an  essayist, 
to  say  nothing  of  your  being  a  scholar  such  as  we 
breed,  if  at  all,  only  as  the  phoanix  is  bred. 

But  your  genius  and  your  radiant  panoply  of  ac 
complishments  do  not  make  you  insensible  to  the 
congratulations  and  the  good  wishes  of  your  friends 
—  especially  of  your  old  friends ;  and  I,  though  not 
one  of  the  very  oldest  —  the  pre- Adamite  Company,  — 
have  seen  my  hair  whiten  since  my  life  was  richer  for 
your  friendship,  and,  if  I  mistake  not,  a  silver  arrow 
or  two  —  perhaps  from  the  head  of  one  of  those  Dan 
delions  you  sung  of  in  the  springtime  —  lodge  in  the 
brown  magnificence  of  your  kingly  beard. 

Take  my  thanks,  then,  for  the  beautiful  volume  of 
noble  verse,  and  my  love  and  best  wishes  that  you 
may  live  long  to  adorn  and  honor  the  literature  of 
your  country  and  your  language. 


164  CHARLES  STREET,  January  29,  1868. 

MY  DEAR  JAMES,  —  The  two  beautiful  volumes 
came  yesterday,  —  not  less  welcome  because  they  have 
been  long  looked  for. 

It  is  too  late  to  praise  the  Biglow  Papers,  since  the 
world  has  put  the  broad  seal  upon  them.  Besides, 
their  qualities  so  contend  for  the  mastery  that  if  one 
gets  only  its  due  the  others  will  seem  unfairly  dealt 
with.  I  must  not  say  they  are  alive  with  wit  and 


TO   JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL  113 

humor,  for  these  are  used  with  a  purpose  which  lends 
dignity  to  their  most  sportive  words.  I  think  of  the 
retiarius  every  time  you  step  out  on  the  sand,  —  you 
hold  a  net  of  fun  in  one  hand  and  a  trident  of  sense, 
wisdom,  and  honesty  in  the  other. 

But  if  I  say  too  much  of  these  qualities  I  am  in 
danger  of  forgetting  all  there  is  of  feeling,  of  elo 
quence,  of  subtlety,  of  learning,  of  observation,  and, 
best  of  all,  of  true  human  nature  in  these  full-blooded 
poems.  So  I  will  stop  short  in  my  praises,  lest  I 
should  pile  them  so  high  that  I  should  become  envious 
of  the  monument  I  had  reared,  and  grudge  you  some 
of  the  many  gifts  the  gods  have  so  freely  granted  you. 

It  has  been  one  of  the  great  privileges  of  my  last 
decade  to  enjoy  your  friendship,  and  these  volumes 
will  always  make  me  richer,  not  merely  by  what  their 
pages  hold,  but  by  constantly  reminding  me  of  the 
many  delightful  hours  I  have  passed  in  the  sunshine 
of  your  companionship. 


296  BEACON  STREET,  March  22, 1871. 
MY  DEAR  JAMES,  —  I  got  the  other  day  your  rich 
volume  of  criticisms  and  essays,  which  I  blushed  to 
set  against  the  pauper  Essay  I  sent  you.  .  .  . 

I  have  read  much  of  your  book  in  the  North 
American  and  a  little  at  odd  minutes  since  it  came, 
and  I  find  wherever  I  open  it  so  much  scholarship, 
such  acuteness  of  criticism,  such  overflowing  exuber 
ance  of  happy  illustration,  such  continual  sparkle  of 
wit  and  humor,  that  I  am  afraid  it  makes  me  feel  as 
Thackeray  did  when  he  read  something  of  Dickens's 
—  What  is  the  use  of  trying  against  such  a  man  as 

VOL.  n. 


114  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

this  ?  But  again  I  think  that  my  study  lamp  burns 
just  as  well  as  if  there  were  no  Fresnel  illumination 
in  the  light-house,  and  comfort  myself  with  the  thought 
that,  in  a  region  where  there  is  so  much  darkness,  it 
is  worth  while  for  each  and  all  of  us  to  let  his  light 
shine  as  it  can,  were  it  only  a  match  he  scratches  on 
his  boot-sole. 

I  have  not  welcomed  you  to  my  new  house  yet, 
where  I  hope  to  see  you  whenever  you  can  stretch 
your  legs  so  far  or  take  a  seat  in  the  cars  which  leave 
the  Tremont  House  every  twenty  minutes.  They  are 
driving  me  out  of  my  library  at  this  minute,  to  be  dis 
possessed  for  the  rest  of  the  week  —  the  ceiling  hav 
ing  to  be  re-frescoed  by  Guido  Keni  (Macpherson)  in 
consequence  of  a  pipe's  bursting  in  the  cold  snap. 

So,  hoping  to  meet  you  before  long,  I  am  as  always. 


296  BEACON  STREET,  September  28,  1875. 

MY  DEAR  JAMES/ —  Two  faculty  meetings  on 
Thursday  of  this  week  (Dental  and  Medical)  which  I 
cannot  miss,  and  my  lectures  on  the  following  Thurs 
days,  keep  me  in  Boston  in  despite  of  all  temptations. 
I  never  go  to  any  shows  nowadays  —  formerly  they 
were  autre  chose  —  but  if  I  did  go  to  any,  cattle- 
shows  would  be  my  favorite  resort  —  especially  in 
Spain,  where  I  understand  they  have  very  fine  ones. 
At  our  native  exhibitions  I  have  a  wonderful  liking, 
for  looking  at  prize  pumpkins  and  squashes  —  great 
fellows  marked  100  lb.,  120  lb.,  127  Ib. !  and  so  on 
—  the  rivalry  excites  me  like  a  horse-race.  As  for 
fatted  calves  and  the  like,  I  am  as  eager  for  them  as 
the  prodigal  son.  The  Great  Cheese  commonly  shown 

1  Replying  to  an  invitation  to  a  cattle-show. 


TO   JAMES   RUSSELL   LOWELL  115 

comes  in  for  a  share  of  my  admiration.  The  sampler 
worked  by  a  little  girl  aged  five  years  and  three 
months,  and  the  patchwork  quilt  wrought  by  the  old 
lady  of  eighty-seven  years,  four  months,  and  six  days, 
receive  alike  my  respectful  attention.  I  lift  the 
dasher  of  the  new  patent  churn  with  the  proud  feel 
ing  that  I,  too,  am  a  contriver  and  see  my  unpatented 
gimcrack1  in  every  window.  And  the  ploughing- 
match,  too  —  not  quite  so  actively  exciting  as  Epsom 
(I  don't  mean  the  salts,  of  course,  but  the  race),  but 
still  equal  to  bringing  on  a  mild  glow  of  excitement. 
Yes,  I  miss  a  good  deal  in  not  going  to  the  cattle- 
shows. 

But  we  missed  you  sadly,  my  dear  fellow,  on  Sat 
urday.  Good  and  great  men  are  getting  scarce,  my 
James,  and  you  must  not  be  trifling  in  this  way  with 
your  gouts  and  gastralgias. 

Do  thank  your  son-in-law  — (I  met  him  the  other 
day  and  he  showed  me  a  photograph  of  one  of  his 
children,  which  was  a  credit  to  all  concerned)  —  for 
complimenting  me  with  a  wish  for  my  presence. 

I  have  been  having  a  very  pleasant  vacation  at 
Beverly,  Nahant,  and  Mattapoisett,  and  am  beginning 
my  seven  months'  lecture  course  feeling  quite  juve 
nile  for  an  elderly  gentleman  —  however,  the  elders 
always  had  a  good  deal  of  real  pith  in  them,  I  remem 
ber,  in  my  boyish  days  !  and  I  suppose  it  is  so  now. 


BOSTON,  March  21,  1876. 

MY     DEAR     JAMES,  —  Your    book,    "  From    the 
author,"  has  been  lying  with  a  heap  of  others,  some 
times  on  top,  sometimes  underneath,  for   weeks  and 
weeks,  and  I  have  never  yet  thanked  you  for  it, 
1  The  hand-stereoscope. 


116  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

I  was  quite  right.  It  was  not  written  in  a  hurry, 
must  not  be  read  in  a  hurry,  and  need  not  be  thanked 
for  in  a  hurry.  I  have  read  one  of  the  papers  from 
time  to  time  just  when  I  felt  like  it,  and  it  is  only  a 
day  or  two  since  I  finished  reading  the  Dante,  which 
was  the  last  I  took  up,  and  having  read  laid  down 
with  a  sigh  of  regret  that  I  could  not  earlier  in  my 
life  have  come  under  those  influences  (perhaps  I 
ought  to  say  could  not  have  inherited  those  gifts) 
which  would  have  fitted  me  to  read  such  an  Essay  as 
a  scholar  and  not  as  a  school-boy. 

There  is  no  need  of  my  praising  such  a  piece  of 
criticism  as  this,  —  and  I  speak  of  this  especially  as 
the  most  elaborate,  the  most  profound,  the  most 
learned,  and  the  most  subtile,  where  all  are  remark 
able  for  these  qualities  in  various  degree,  —  I  say 
there  is  no  need  of  my  praising  a  masterpiece  like  this. 
It  serves  a  great  purpose,  quite  independently  of 
its  value  with  reference  to  Dante  and  his  readers  ;  it 
shows  our  young  American  scholars  that  they  need 
not  be  provincial  in  their  way  of  thought  or  their 
scholarship  because  they  happen  to  be  born  or  bred  in 
an  outlying  district  of  the  great  world  of  letters. 
We  Boston  people  are  so  bright  and  wide-awake, 
and  have  been  really  so  much  in  advance  of  our  fel 
low-barbarians  with  our  Monthly  Anthologies,  and 
Atlantic  Monthlies,  and  North  American  Reviews, 
that  we  have  been  in  danger  of  thinking  our  local 
scale  was  the  absolute  one  of  excellence  —  forgetting 
that  212  Fahrenheit  is  but  100  Centigrade.  That  is 
one  way  of  looking  at  ourselves ;  and  the  other,  as 
you  know,  is  looking  on  ourselves  as  intellectual 
colonial  dependents,  and  accepting  that  "  certain  con 
descension  in  foreigners,"  which  you  have  so  deli- 
ciously  exploded,  as  all  that  we  are  entitled  to. 


TO   JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL  117 

These  criticisms  of  yours  are  more  truly  authorita 
tive  for  me  than  any  others  that  I  read,  and  when  I 
thank  you  for  them  it  is  as  a  pupil  thanks  a  mas 
ter.  If  I  have  sometimes  spoken  of  criticism  as  a 
secondary  function  of  the  man  of  letters,  I  cannot 
have  been  thinking  of  such  criticism  as  yours,  the 
side-lights  of  which,  if  brought  together,  would  make 
a  series  of  brilliant  original  essays. 

BOSTON,  December  25, 1877. 

MY  DEAR  JAMES,  —  What  can  I  do  better,  this 
Christmas  morning,  than  sit  down  and  write  Your 
Excellency  a  few  lines  or  pages,  as  the  case  may  be  ? 
I  venture  to  say  that  the  Boston  postmark  looks 
pleasantly  on  the  back  of  a  letter  —  for  you  have  paid 
your  debts  before  sailing,  I  do  not  question,  and  I  am 
sure  that  any  letter  from  your  own  country  will  bring 
nothing  but  kind  messages  to  one  of  its  few  represen 
tatives  whom  it  has  any  special  reason  to  be  proud 
of.  Of  course  you  are  very  fresh  in  all  our  memories 
just  now,  for  it  is  only  a  week  yesterday  since  we 
were  celebrating  Whittier's  seventieth  birthday,  and 
on  that  occasion,  as  you  know,  I  trust,  before  this, 
no  one  was  more  fully  and  warmly  remembered  than 
yourself.  I  please  myself  with  thinking  that  you 
have  had  the  Daily  Advertiser  with  the  account  of 
the  Dinner  at  the  Brunswick,  and  the  following  num 
ber  of  the  same  paper,  in  which  Norton's  response 
to  a  toast  in  your  honor  is  given  at  length.  It  was 
very  happy  and  full  of  feeling,  and  received  by  the 
audience  in  a  way  that  would  have  pleased  you.  But 
you  ought  to  have  been  there  yourself  to  have  been 
welcomed  as  you  would  have  been,  not  merely  for  a 
thousand  reasons  which  you  know  so  well,  but  more 


118  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

especially  as  the  first  Editor  of  The  Atlantic,  who  set 
it  on  its  legs  —  (why  not  ?  You  have  often  heard  of 
an  arm  of  the  sea)  —  and  in  the  words  of  Byron,  bade 
it  "  roll  on,"  which  it  has  done  so  stoutly  ever  since. 
That  dinner  is  almost  all  I  have  to  tell  you  about,  for 
at  the  November  Club  I  could  not  be,  because  Eliot 
called  a  Faculty  meeting  which  prevented  my  going, 
and  I  was  out  of  town  during  the  summer  months,  so 
that  I  have  really  seen  almost  nothing  of  our  mutual 
friends  since  I  bade  you  good-by  on  board  the  Par- 
thia.  Even  John  I  have  not  seen  for  weeks.  My 
daily  lecture,  my  visits  to  poor  Edward  Clarke,  who 
died  a  few  weeks  ago,  answering  letters  and  looking 
over  the  books  that  are  sent  me  —  it  is  a  lean  life, 
isn't  it?  But  I  am  getting  notes  together  for  my 
Memoir  of  Motley,  and  now  and  then  writing  a  little 
something,  for  instance,  a  piece  called  "My  Aviary" 
for  the  January  Atlantic,  and  some  verses  for  the 
Whittier  dinner.  You  have  something  to  tell,  but 
what  can  I  say  to  interest  you  ?  The  migrations  of 
the  Vicar  and  his  wife  from  the  blue  bed  to  the  brown 
were  hardly  more  monotonous  than  the  pendulum- 
swing  of  my  existence,  so  far  as  all  outward  occur 
rences  go.  Yet  life  is  never  monotonous,  absolutely, 
to  me.  I  am  a  series  of  surprises  to  myself  in  the 
changes  that  years  and  ripening,  and  it  may  be  a  still 
further  process  which  I  need  not  name,  bring  about. 
The  movement  onward  is  like  changing  place  in  a 
picture  gallery  —  the  light  fades  from  this  picture  and 
falls  on  that,  so  that  you  wonder  where  the  first  has 
gone  to  and  see  all  at  once  the  meaning  of  the  other. 
Not  that  I  am  so  different  from  other  people  —  there 
may  be  a  dozen  of  me,  minus  my  accidents,  for  aught 
I  know  —  say  rather  ten  thousand.  But  what  a 


TO   JAMES   RUSSELL   LOWELL  119 

strange  thing  life  is  when  you  have  waded  in  up  to 
your  neck  and  remember  the  shelving  sands  you  have 
trodden ! 

I  have  often  asked  and  now  and  then  heard  from 
you.  You  were  said  to  have  had  some  trouble,  rheu 
matic  or  other,  but  at  last  accounts  to  be  rid  of  it. 
You  were  quoted  as  saying  that  your  office  was  one 
that  required  a  good  deal  of  work,  or  more  work  than 
some  of  the  other  diplomatic  stations.  I  hope  you 
are  well  and  used  to  your  labors  by  this  time,  but  I 
will  say  to  you  as  I  used  to  say  to  Motley,  that  I  would 
on  no  account  lay  any  burden  upon  you  in  the  shape 
of  answering  this  or  any  future  letter  of  mine  except  at 
your  convenience  and  as  briefly  as  you  will.  With 
kindest  regards  to  Mrs.  Lowell, 

I  am  as  always. 


BEVERLY  FARMS,  September  22,  1878. 

MY  DEAR  JAMES,  —  Love  me,  love  my  —  poems  is 
not  the  way  in  which  it  is  generally  put.  Love  my 
poems,  love  you,  would  come  nearer  the  truth.  It  did 
me  good  to  get  those  pleasant  words  about  my  Atlantic 
verses,  which  I  read,  by 'the  way,  at  the  $  B  K  dinner, 
of  which  society  they  chose  me  President.  So  you 
see  I  have  the  honor  of  being  your  successor.  I  feel 
oldish  for  such  places,  but  I  think,  generally  speaking, 
the  higher  the  place  one  holds,  the  more  work  others 
do  for  him,  so  that  logically  the  supreme  position  in 
the  universe  would  be  one  of  absolute  repose.  Sixty- 
eight  quotha !  I  shall  never  couple  those  two  figures 
again  after  my  name — sixty-Time,  by'r  Lady  —  and 
so  few  good  old  men  left !  When  a  man  says  to  him 
self,  I  am  now  in  my  seventieth  year — still  more  when 


120  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

he  writes  it,  as  I  do  now,  he  feels  as  if  he  were  talk 
ing  about  somebody  else,  or  reading  in  the  obituary 
column  of  a  newspaper,  or  scraping  the  moss  from  an 
old  gravestone  and  spelling  it  out ;  but  the  idea  that 
he  is  himself  the  subject  of  the  malady  called  three 
score  years  and  ten  —  or  like  soon  to  be — the  age  at 
which  King  David  (the  brother  poet,  I  mean)  was 
advertising  for  a  dry-nurse  — 

I  leave  that  sentence  unfinished,  expressly,  inten 
tionally,  for  what  can  I  say  to  match  the  absurdity  of 
the  thought  which  presents  itself  as  a  fact  and  sounds 
so  like  a  lie!  —  Ah  well;  age  is  well  enough — but 
just  now  — 

I  almost  blush  to  write  with  so  very  little  beyond 
the  changes  from  the  blue  bed  to  the  brown  to  tell 
you.  Next  Monday  —  the  30th,  that  is  —  we  expect 
to  return  to  Boston,  having  passed  a  delightful  but 
exceedingly  quiet  summer  here  at  Beverly  Farms.  .  .  . 
We  are  at  a  small  wayside  house,  where  we  make 
ourselves  comfortable,  my  wife,  my  daughter,  and  my 
self,  with  books,  walks,  drives,  and  as  much  laziness 
as  we  can  bring  ourselves  to,  which  is  quite  too  little, 
for  none  of  us  has  a  real  genius  for  the  far  niente. 
All  round  us  are  the  most  beautiful  and  expensive 
residences,  some  close  to  the  sea  beaches,  some  on 
heights  farther  back  in  the  midst  of  the  woods,  some 
perched  on  the  edge  of  precipices ;  one  has  a  net 
spread  out  which  she  calls  a  baby-catcher,  over  the 
abyss,  on  the  verge  of  which  her  piazza  hangs  shud 
dering.  We  go  to  most  of  these  fine  places  once 
during  the  season.  We  see  the  fine  equipages  roll  by 
(the  constable  does  not  take  off  his  hat),  and  we  carry 
as  contented  faces  as  most  of  them  do.  .  .  I  wonder 


TO   JAMES   RUSSELL   LOWELL  121 

if  you  have  ever  found  time  to  write  your  notice  of 
Edmund  Quincy  ?  My  Memoir  of  Motley  is  essen 
tially  done,  and  I  have  tied  it  up  to  carry  to  town  with 
me.  It  is  long  for  a  Hist.  Soc.  memoir  —  nearly  two 
hundred  pages  of  my  manuscript,  which  is  square  and 
pretty  well  filled.  It  cost  me  some  trouble  and  may 
possibly  provoke  some  antagonism,  but  the  disputes 
are  so  nearly  burned  out  (those  about  the  Vienna 
resignation  and  the  London  recall)  that  my  poking  in 
the  ashes  may  not  burn  my  fingers.  It  is  no  great 
matter  whether  it  does  or  not ;  I  shall  say  my  say  in 
decent  and,  I  think,  very  moderate  language.  —  Even 
ing  before  last  I  ran  up  to  town  to  dine  with  Phillips 
Brooks,  who  had  Dean  Stanley  as  his  guest.  The 
Dean's  face  reminded  me  most  oddly  of  that  of  my 
classmate,  the  late  Judge  Bigelow.  I  had  some  inter 
esting  talk  with  him,  especially  about  the  Motleys. 
Motley  was  a  very  warm  admirer  of  yours,  as  you 
must  know.  He  was  one  of  the  two  you  referred  to,  I 
feel  sure,  as  making  up  a  large  part  of  the  world  which 
it  was  a  pleasure  to  please  by  your  writings  —  in  one 
of  your  last  poems,  I  mean,  which  I  have  not  by  me  to 
refer  to.  Whenever  my  Memoir  is  printed  I  will 
send  you  an  early  copy.  I  do  not  suppose  you  have 
much  time  to  read,  but  you  can  turn  the  pages  over, 
and  get  your  Sancho  to  cut  them  if  they  are  not  cut 
already. 

I  am  at  the  bottom  of  my  page,  and  ask  myself : 
why  did  I  write  ?  What  had  I  to  tell  ?  Nothing,  al 
most,  but  my  letter  tells  you  that  you  are  remembered 
in  the  quiet  little  place  I  write  from,  and  I  am  but 
one  of  the  many  who  often  think  of  you  and  long  to 
see  you  back  again. 


122  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

BOSTON,  May  13,  1879. 

MY  DEAE  JAMES,  —  Three  or  four  months  ago  I 
sent  you  a  copy  of  a  Memoir  of  Motley,  in  which  I 
thought  you  might  find  a  few  pages  to  interest  you. 
Yes,  sent  it,  but  it  never  went,  as  I  have  recently 
learned.  I  left  the  care  of  it  to  the  publishers, 
Houghton  &  Osgood,  who  sent  it,  as  they  thought,  to 
the  right  people  —  Putnam,  I  think,  in  New  York  — 
at  any  rate,  it  was  too  heavy  for  the  post,  it  seemed 
—  (too  heavy !  ominous)  —  and  so  it  lay  quietly  in 
their  dungeon,  week  after  week  and  month  after 
month,  and  I  am  afraid  has  not  gone  yet,  but  I  will 
find  out  very  soon.  I  was  provoked.  Not  that  you 
want  the  book  so  much,  not  that  you  have  got  to  read 
it  and  write  a  letter  to  me  about  it  —  Dii  prohibete  — 
but  I  wanted  you  to  know  that  you  are  in  the  memo 
ries  of  many  you  have  left  behind  you,  mine  especially. 
Think  what  the  Club,  where  we  oftenest  met,  now  is. 
.Emerson  is  afraid  to  trust  himself  in  society  much, 
on  account  of  the  failure  of  his  memory  and  the  great 
difficulty  he  finds  in  getting  the  word  he  wants.  It  is 
painful  to  witness  his  embarrassment  at  times,  —  still 
he  has  made  out  to  lecture  at  Concord  lately.  I  hope 
you  saw  that  touching  note  of  his,  declining  some  in 
vitation,  in  which  he  spoke  of  his  memory  as  "  hiding 
itself."  Longfellow  never  comes ;  I  think  he  has  not 
been  since  you  left  us,  though  I  meet  him  once  in  a 
while  at  a  private  dinner-party.  Charles  Norton 
comes,  it  is  true,  and  now  and  then  another  Canta 
brigian  or  two,  but  the  club  is  reduced  to  little  more 
than  the  dimensions  of  a  walking-stick.  I  went  last 
time  and  had  some  talk  with  C.  N.,  who  is  greatly 
interested  in  an  archaeological  association,  of  which  he 
is  the  moving  spirit.  It  is  going  to  dig  up  some  gods 


TO  JAMES   KUSSELL  LOWELL  123 

in  Greece,  if  it  can  get  money  enough  —  I  suppose 
they  may  be  required  in  some  quarters  to  supply  an 
apparent  want. 

I  am  busy,  as  usual.  I  wish  I  could  bring  more  to 
pass,  for  I  am  hardly  ever  idle.  A  fortnight  ago  I 
went  to  New  York,  and  had  a  fine  time,  being  break 
fasted,  lunched,  dined,  and  made  much  of.  Of  course 
I  had  to  say  something  for  myself,  and  so  I  did. 
These  occasional  autos-da-ftf,  at  which  I  am  a  kind  of 
asbestos  victim,  are  almost  wearing  the  life  out  of  me. 
It  is  as  bad  as  habitual  drunkenness,  this  habit  I  have 
been  led  into.  Now  comes  the  Moore  centennial  — 
it  is  worse  than  the  seventeen-year  locust  plague  — 
this  centennial  epidemic.  "What  do  I  write  for?" 
Because  they  cajole,  and  flatter,  and  tease,  and  I  have 
got  into  the  way  of  yielding.  Why  can't  you  get  a 
furlough  and  drop  in  at  the  $  B  K  meeting?  they  have 
made  me  President,  because  I  am  over-ripe,  I  sup 
pose.  Backward  the  course  of  empire  takes  its  way. 
You  were  President  when  your  hair  was  —  brown? 
Mine  is  white. 

I  write  to  tell  you  about  the  book  you  ought  to 
have  and  have  not  got  —  you  shall  have  it,  whether 
you  want  it  or  not.  Don't  forget  us  all.  Kindest 
regards  to  Mrs.  Lowell. 

BOSTON,  December  4,  1879. 

MY  DEAR  JAMES,  —  At  half -past  six  p.  M.  yesterday 
I  got  up  from  a  "  breakfast "  given  to  me  at  the 
Brunswick  by  the  publishers  of  The  Atlantic.  My 
friends  were  there  in  great  force,  except  Longfel 
low,  who  sends  me  an  affectionate  note  this  morn 
ing,  telling  me  how  he  was  prevented  by  a  sharp  and 
sudden  attack  of  influenza  from  coming.  Of  course, 


124  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

a  banquet  from  which  the  two  L's  are  absent  is  shorn 
of  its  brightest  ornaments,  but  we  did  —  they  did,  I 
should  say  —  as  well  as  possible  under  the  circum 
stances,  and  this  morning  I  look  back  on  all  the  fine 
things  that  were  said  and  sung  about  me,  and  feel 
like  a  royal  mummy  just  embalmed.  The  only  thing 
is,  that  in  hearing  so  much  about  one's  self  it  makes 
him  think  he  is  dead  and  reading  his  obituary  notices. 
My  table  is  covered  with  letters,  some  of  which  are 
shrieking  for  answers,  but  I  sit  down  to  write  to  you 
first  for  a  special  reason.  If  you  should  see  a  copy  of 
the  Advertiser  —  and  I  suppose  you  may  look  at  a 
Boston  paper  now  and  then  —  you  will  see  in  that  of 
December  4th  a  report  of  this  festival,  and  you  will 
find  your  own  name  mentioned  by  me.  I  spoke  of 
you  as  having  been  the  cause  of  my  writing  The 
Autocrat  by  what  you  said  to  me  when  The  Atlantic 
was  started,  and  that  any  pleasure  my  writings  had 
given,  and  my  own  enjoyment  of  the  immediate  occa 
sion,  they  owed  to  you  in  addition  to  your  own  noble 
contribution  to  our  literature.  The  wretches  printed 
"  noble  "  notable  !  The  idea  of  my  applying  that  luke 
warm  word  to  the  grand  poems  which  so  largely  merit 
the  adjective  I  gave  them !  I  was  so  vexed  that,  if  I 
had  not  slept  off  my  breakfast,  I  should  have  had  an 
indigestion.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  but  for  these 
kind  and  confident  words  of  yours  I  might  not  have 
taken  up  my  pen  in  serious  earnest,  and  so  have 
missed  the  chance  of  saying  some  things  I  am  glad 
to  have  said  and  which  others  have  been  willing  to 
listen  to. 


TO   JAMES   RUSSELL   LOWELL  125 

BOSTON,  February  25,  1880. 

MY  DEAR  JAMES,  —  It  is  six  weeks  since  I  received 
your  letter  (of  December  27th).  When  I  think,  as  I 
return  to  it,  of  all  you  have  been  through  within  the 
past  year,  I  reproach  myself  for  not  having  sent  at 
least  a  few  words  of  reply  before  this.  In  spite  of  all 
you  told  me,  I  do  not  think  I  can  bring  home  to  my 
self  in  imagination  the  terrible  strain  it  must  have 
been  to  watch  one  so  dear  to  you  through  a  long  period 
of  danger  and  distress,  —  unconscious,  too,  of  all  the 
affectionate  care  bestowed  upon  her,  —  and  this  in  a 
strange  land  and  with  duties,  I  suppose,  which  were 
peremptory  in  their  demands  upon  you.  Most  fer 
vently  I  hope  — what  if  I  said  I  pray  ?  — not  to  Al 
mighty  "  Protoplasm,"  surely,  —  that  the  precious  life 
so  interwoven  with  your  own  may  be  spared  to  you  and 
restored  to  its  former  health,  so  that  she,  with  whom 
you  have  been  through  the  valley  of  the  shadow,  — 
almost  that  of  death,  —  may  be  your  companion  dur 
ing  the  brilliant  years  which  lie  before  you. 

You  have  forgotten  how  many  pleasant  things  you 
said  to  me  in  your  last  letter.  It  is  my  turn  now. 
Ever  since  you  dined  at  my  table  in  company  with 
Motley,  I  have  thought  of  you  as  a  Diplomatist  in  the 
making.  I  believe  everybody  is  pleased  with  your 
appointment,  here  at  home.  Leland  (Hans  Breit- 
mann),  who  has  been  living  in  London  some  years, 
says  you  will  be  the  most  popular  American  Minister 
we  have  ever  sent.  I  cannot  help  thinking  "  J.  B." 
will  take  to  you  all  the  more  heartily  because  you 
have  lashed  him  pretty  well  in  the  poems  which  every 
body  in  England  (who  reads)  read  at  the  time  (if 
Kutledge's  statistics  are  an  index),  and  which  will  be 
re-read  now  with  renewed  delight  for  the  neatness  with 


126  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

which  the  licks  were  laid  on.  It  won't  hurt  you  to 
have  won  your  spurs  from  Oxford  and  Cambridge  be 
fore  you  showed  yourself  to  the  Dons  as  an  official 
personage.  All  things  considered,  I  think  nobody 
has  appeared  at  the  British  Court  from  this  side 
of  the  Atlantic  since  John  Adams,  who  had  a  right  to 
a  sense  of  inward  satisfaction  quite  up  to  your  own. 
And  what  a  place  to  fill !  Do  you  remember  what  I 
myself  said  once  ? 

I  would  perhaps  be  Plenipo, 
But  only  near  St.  James. 

Of  course,  all  of  us  knew  you  ought  to  be  there,  and 
many  of  us  hardly  doubted  that  you  would  be.  You 
know  what  creatures  we  have  sometimes  sent  abroad 
as  ministers,  of  any  one  of  whom,  if  we  should  say  that 
our  realm  contained 

Five  hundred  as  good  as  he, 

it  would  be  considered  as  a  libel  by  implication.  On 
the  contrary,  we  consider  you  to  be  a  regular  e  pluri- 
bus  Unum  (I  mean  The  One  out  of  a  great  many). 
You  may  get  as  much  European  epidermis  as  you  like, 
the  strigil  will  always  show  you  to  be  at  heart  an  un 
changed  and  unchangeable  New  Englander.  You  are 
anchored  here,  and  though  your  cable  is  three  thou 
sand  miles  long,  it  will  pull  you  home  again  by  and 
by ;  at  least,  so  I  believe,  so  I  think  all  who  know 
you  believe.  That  is  just  what  we  like,  —  a  man  who 
can  be  at  his  ease  in  Court  or  cloister,  and  yet  has  a 
bit  of  Yankee  backbone  that  won't  soften  in  spite  of 
his  knee-breeches,  his  having  to  be  "  with  high  consid 
eration,"  and  the  rest.  All  this  I  could  n't  help  say 
ing,  for  I  feel  it  to  be  true  as  you  know  it  to  be. 
If  I  write  you  a  letter  from  time  to  time,  pray  do 


TO   JAMES   RUSSELL  LOWELL  127 

not  let  it  weigh  upon  you  that  it  must  be  answered.  I 
think  you  can  have  very  little  leisure  for  any  private 
correspondence. 

BOSTON,  January  17,  1881. 

MY  DEAR  JAMES,  —  Whether  you  have  time  to 
read  a  letter  is  the  question  with  me,  not  whether  you 
have  time  to  write  one  in  answer.  You  must  have 
more  to  do,  to  see,  to  say,  to  think  about,  than  we  quiet 
people  at  home  can  dream  of.  But  I  do  not  feel  quite 
happy  without  reminding  you  once  or  twice  a  year, 
or  even  a  little  oftener  than  that,  that  there  is  such 
a  place  as  New  England,  and  that  you  have  some 
friends  there  who  have  not  forgotten  you,  and  who 
will  be  very  glad  to  see  you  back  again  —  that  is, 
whenever  you  have  got  enough  of  it  and  come  of  your 
own  accord.  .  .  . 

Perhaps  you  would  like  a  word  or  two  about  the 
Club.  No  meeting  the  last  Saturday  of  December, 
that  being  the  25th.  The  last  of  November  we  had  a 
very  good  meeting  for  these  degenerate  days  —  Emer 
son  hors  de  combat,  mainly,  Agassiz  dead,  Longfellow 
an  absentee,  Lowell  representing  —  the  Club  —  at 
Her  Imperial  Majesty's  Court.  I  feel  like  old  Nestor 
talking  of  his  companions  of  earlier  days  —  divine 
Polyphemus,  godlike  Theseus,  and  the  rest,  —  "  men 
like  these  I  have  not  seen  and  shall  never  look  on  their 
like  "  —  at  least  until  you  come  back  and  we  have 
Longfellow  and  all  that  is  left  of  Emerson  to  meet 
you.  I  say  "  all  that  is  left."  It  is  the  machinery 
of  thought  that  moves  with  difficulty,  especially  the 
memory,  but  we  can  hardly  hope  that  the  other  mental 
powers  will  not  gradually  fade  as  that  has  faded. 

It  is  your  business  to  outlive  all  of  the  group  with 


128  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

which,  though  ten  years  younger  than  the  youngest, 
you  are  commonly  named.  If,  as  may  be  hoped,  you 
should  pass  the  later  years  of  a  long  life  in  the  old 
town  you  know  and  love  so  well,  what  a  position  you 
will  hold  —  what  homage  will  surround  you !  And 
what  memories  you  will  have  to  live  upon !  I  am  very 
much  struck  with  the  effect  a  few  additional  years 
have  in  adding  to  the  respect  and  the  tender  regard 
with  which  one  is  treated.  Of  course  I  see  this  in  the 
way  in  which  Emerson  and  Whittier  and  Longfellow 
are  looked  upon  and  spoken  of ;  but  I  myself  experi 
ence  some  of  the  same  kindliness  in  the  way  in  which 
I  am  received  and  spoken  of,  and  am  finding  out  that 
every  age  has  its  own  privileges  and  pleasures. 

You  ought  to  have  been  at  the  Cambridge  semi 
centennial,  when  your  delightful  and  most  welcome 
note  was  read.  I  only  attended  the  school-gathering 
in  the  forenoon,  at  which  Longfellow  said  a  few  words, 
and  sat  in  the  chair  the  children  presented  him  a  year 
or  two  ago,  and  I  read  a  few  verses.  You  must  see 
our  papers  and  must  have  seen  the  account  —  unless 
you  are  more  thoroughly  weaned  from  bathycolpian 
Cambridge  than  I  believe  you  ever  will  be. 

Also  you  ought  to  see  yourself  embalmed  in  Har 
per  s  Magazine.  Underwood  is  potting  our  (literary) 
interiors,  and  doing  us  up  in  spices  like  so  many  dead 
Pharaohs. 

With  loving  remembrance, 

Always  faithfully  yours. 

Don't  think  I  expect  answers. 


TO   JAMES   RUSSELL  LOWELL  129 

My  little  calendar  reads  thus :  — 

JULY 

25 

Wut  's  best  to  think  may  n't  puzzle  me  nor  you, 
The  pinch  comes  in  decidiu'  wut  to  do. 

J.  R.  LOWELL. 

MY  DEAR  JAMES,  —  I  wonder  if  you  find  time  to 
read  anything  besides  official  papers  ?  As  for  writing, 
you  must  have  enough  of  that  to  do  per  alium  if  not 
per  teipsum.  Still,  I  told  you  I  should  write  you  from 
time  to  time,  and  now  I  am  here  at  the  seaside,  and 
there  is  a  little  lull  in  my  labors,  and  I  am  going  to 
remind  you  that  there  is  a  Western  hemisphere  where 
you  have  a  few  friends  left  yet  —  I  hope  you  may  find 
them  all  when  you  come  back.  I  think  Longfellow 
shows  his  added  years  very  plainly.  I  went  a  year  or 
so  ago  with  him  to  be  photographed,  and  the  picture 
showed  less  life  than  any  I  had  seen  of  him.  This 
may  have  been  temporary,  but  I  own  that  he  appears 
to  me  more  languid  in  his  air  and  movements  —  it  is 
not  strange  at  seventy-four.  But  I  have  often  noticed 
that  there  are  unexplained  movements  in  health  at 
different  ages,  especially  in  later  years,  both  downward 
and  upward,  towards  Avernus  and  back  again,  so  that 
one  who  seems  to  be  failing  will  grow  younger  again 
next  year,  and  begin  quite  fresh  after  his  episode  of 
depression.  Emerson  is  gently  fading  out  like  a  pho 
tograph —  the  outlines  are  all  there,  but  the  details 
are  getting  fainter.  He  keeps  his  Egeria  always  near 
him  to  hint  the  right  word  to  him  —  his  faithful 
daughter  Ellen.  Whittier  is  pretty  well,  I  believe,  — 
but  I  have  seen  none  of  our  old  friends  for  some 
weeks,  since  I  have  been  quietly  living  at  my  old 


130  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

quarters  at  Beverly  Farms.  The  last  Club  I  went  to 
was  at  the  end  of  May.  The  "  Saturday  "  is  not  what 
it  was  when  you  were  with  us.  We  do  our  best  to 
keep  it  alive.  I,  and  a  number  of  others,  always  pay 
two  dollars  whether  we  are  there  or  not ;  which  makes 
it  easier  for  the  financial  infirmities.  .  .  .  The  little 
block  almanac  or  calendar,  from  which  I  took  the  text 
for  this  25th  of  July,  1881,  is  one  of  several  of  a 
similar  aspect  which  have  been  published  here  lately. 
Many  of  the  mottoes  are  from  your  poems,  others  from 
the  friends  with  whom  your  name  is  often  coupled,  of 
whom  I  have  the  honor  to  be  one  now  and  then.  There 
has  been  a  great  deal  done  of  late,  especially  in  the 
West,  to  popularize  American  writers,  especially  poets. 
They  have  Brown,  Jones,  and  Robinson  "  days "  in 
Cincinnati  and  other  cities  —  B.  J.  &  K.  being  one  or 
another  of  a  very  limited  group  of  living  writers,  all 
of  New  England  birth.  When  the  school-children 
learn  your  verses  they  are  good  for  another  half  cen 
tury  at  any  rate.  But  we  are  getting  smothered  with 
readable  verse,  like  that  girl  in  a  novel  I  was  reading 
the  other  day,  who  smothered  herself  with  roses  and 
other  flowers  instead  of  a  pan  of  charcoal.  I  wish  the 
women  that  send  me  their  manuscripts  would  do  as 
much !  I  will  not  ask  you  a  question,  because  you 
might  feel  as  if  you  ought  to  answer  it,  but  I  cannot 
help  wondering  if  you  see  the  inside  of  any  printed 
books  nowadays,  except  those  you  must  consult.  I 
have  probably  mentioned  Edward  Everett's  story  of 
Lord  Palmerston  to  you  every  time  I  have  written  — 
namely,  that  he  said,  on  being  asked  if  he  had  read 
so  and  so :  that  he  did  not  read  any  printed  books. 
I  have  no  doubt  that,  if  I  write  again,  I  shall  tell  this 
over  again. 


TO   JAMES   RUSSELL   LOWELL  131 

I  begin  to  wonder  whether  you  will  ever  come  back 
to  your  (college)  perch  after  so  high  and  long  a  flight. 
What  an  oracle  you  will  be,  if  you  do !  I  can  imagine 
you  sitting  at  John's  table  with  your  old  village  cro 
nies  around,  and  discoursing  to  them  on  the  small 
amount  of  wisdom  with  which  the  world  is  governed, 
and  the  great  amount  of  talk  that  covers  it.  ...  All 
possibilities,  however,  are  open  to  you,  and  your  old 
friends  may  have  to  live  chiefly  on  the  memories  of  the 
time  when  you  were  among  us,  unless  they  live  to  be 
nonagenarians,  when  you  will  perhaps  find  yourself 
once  more  in  the  shade  of  your  elms  —  and  laurels. 


BEVERLY  FARMS,  MASS.,  August  29,  1883. 
MY  DEAR  JAMES,  —  What  can  I  do  better  on  this, 
my  seventy-fourth  birthday,  than  sit  down  and  remind 
you  of  my  protracted  existence?  It  seems  so  long 
since  I  said  good-by  to  you  on  board  the  steamer  — 
so  long  to  me,  and  how  much  longer  to  you !  You 
would  have  a  great  deal  to  tell  me,  and  I  have  next 
to  nothing  to  tell  you,  yet  you  know  I  claim  this  one 
sided  correspondence  as  my  specialty.  I  should  really 
feel  ashamed  if  I  thought  I  entailed  any  sense  of  obli 
gation  on  you  by  my  occasional  letters.  I  have  told 
you  all  along  that  I  should  write  from  time  to  time, 
and  I  mean  to  do  it.  But  when  I  sit  down  and  think 
of  myself  looking  over  at  my  old  neighbor  digging  his 
potatoes,  taking  my  daily  walks  (with  my  wife)  to  the 
beach,  to  the  woods,  or  to  the  garden  (Mr.  F.  Haven's), 
driving  to  Smith's  Point,  Essex  Woods,  Chebacco 
Pond,  seeing  no  company  except  now  and  then  a 
distinguished  visitor,  —  Mr.  Evarts,  Mr.  Bayard,  or 
estrays  from  Washington,  —  when,  I  say,  I  think  of 


132  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

myself  slowly  oxydating  in  my  quiet  village  life,  and 
of  you  in  the  centre  of  everything,  yourself  a  centre, 
I  smile  at  the  contrast,  and  wonder  whether  you  still 
remember  there  is  such  a  corner  of  the  universe  as 
that  from  which  I  am  writing.  I  hear  of  you  through 
various  channels.  I  saw  you  in  Punch  the  other  day, 
—  a  very  pretty  compliment  it  was  he  paid  your 
speech  at  the  Lord  Mayor's  something  or  other.  I 
wonder  if  anybody  sent  you  the  Cambridge  paper  in 
which  your  name  was  mentioned  (with  Gaston's  and 
another)  as  a  good  candidate  for  Governor.  How 
would  you  like,  I  wonder,  the  old  shoes  in  which  His 
Excellency,  General  Butler,  stands  to-day.  I  always 
thought  you  might  turn  up  as  the  "  dark  horse "  in 
some  of  the  great  handicap  races.  In  the  mean  time 
you  are  greatly  missed  in  our  world  of  letters.  We 
have  had  a  promise  of  a  Life  of  Hawthorne  which  you 
were  to  do  for  the  series  of  American  Men  of  Letters. 
I  hope  you  will  not  give  that  up,  for  no  one  can  fill 
your  place.  I  should  like  mightily  to  see  your  name 
on  the  list,  —  it  is  announced,  —  but  also  to  know  that 
you  were  to  find  or  make  the  time  to  write  the  Memoir 
in  the  intervals  of  diplomatic  and  social  occupations, 
if  such  a  thing  is  conceivable.  I  myself  am  at  work 
on  Emerson.  I  remember  your  early  characterization 
of  him,  and  of  Carlyle,  in  the  Fable  for  Critics,  but 
when  I  get  back  to  Boston  I  shall  look  out  for  all  you 
have  said  about  him  and  his  followers  in  your  various 
Essays,  expecting  to  find  my  best  conclusions  antici 
pated.  I  find  the  study  of  Emerson  curiously  inter 
esting;  few,  I  think,  can  bear  study  into  all  their 
mental,  moral,  personal  conditions  as  he  does.  I  wish 
you  were  here,  that  I  could  talk  him  over  with  you. 
You  must  be  what  our  people  call  "  a  great  success  " 


TO  JAMES   RUSSELL  LOWELL  133 

in  England ;  now  come  home  (when  you  are  ready) 
and  you  shall  be  Sir  Oracle  —  not  Magnus  but 
Maximus  Apollo,  among  your  own  admiring  fellow- 
citizens. 

BOSTON,  May  20,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  JAMES,  —  I  have  just  been  reading  your 
fine  address  at  the  unveiling  of  the  bust  of  Coleridge. 
I  read  it  not  only  with  admiration  of  its  masterly  criti 
cism,  but  with  many  incidental  thoughts  and  recollec 
tions  which  it  brought  up,  my  own  first  reading  of 
"The  Ancient  Mariner,"  and  the  strange  kind  of 
intoxication  it  produced,  a  feeling  as  if  I  had  been 
stunned  and  was  left  bewildered.  What  must  I  needs 
do  but  read  the  poem  over  again ;  and,  being  some 
what  light-headed  from  a  cause  which  I  will  mention, 
I  got  a  fair  reminiscence  of  the  old  stunning  sensa 
tion.  The  cause  I  refer  to  is  the  fact  that  I  have  been 
shut  up  for  nearly  a  fortnight  with  the  worst  attack 
of  illness  I  have  had  for  many  a  year.  Until  to-day 
the  fever  has  been  constant  and  prostrating,  and  I 
have  been  as  worthless  an  invalid  as  you  would  desire 
to  see  —  or  rather,  not  see.  "  Give  me  some  drink, 
Titinius,"  has  been  my  favorite  quotation.  But  I 
have  followed  you  to  the  Abbey,  to  Windsor  Castle, 
to  Eton  with  Mr.  Gladstone,  and  am  thinking  how 
soon  you  are  to  be  back  among  innumerable  admirers 
and  a  multitude  of  friends  —  missing,  alas !  how  many 
faces  of  those  who  would  have  made  your  welcome 
sweet.  You  have  two  paths  open  before  you  now  in 
your  splendid  maturity,  a  career  of  ambition  with  its 
excitements  and  possible  rewards,  and  an  age  of  well- 
won  and  honored  retirement  from  toilsome  duties,  with 
leisure  for  the  studies  and  labors  which  you  love  best. 


134  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

Old  friends  will  return  to  you,  if  you  want  them,  — 
new  friends  will  cluster  thickly  about  you ;  all  that 
can  be  done  to  make  the  old  Cambridge  life  worth 
living  for  you  will  be  at  your  call.  But  I  do  not  for 
get  the  sacred  ground  I  am  approaching ;  I  may  be 
able  to  say  things  I  cannot  write,  at  least  not  now, 
after  these  many  days  of  heated  blood  and  throbbing 
pulses,  in  which  time  has  been  unreal  and  dream-like, 
and  I  find  myself  at  length  like  one  just  waking  from 
a  trance.  Your  return  must  be  an  experiment  to 
yourself.  You  come  back  a  new  man  to  old  scenes 
which  have  been  filling  up  with  new  life  and  leaving 
many  a  blank  space  where  you  will  look  for  a  face 
that  was  familiar.  But  your  welcome  will  be  without 
a  parallel,  and  you  can  choose  your  own  companion 
ships.  If  you  are  tired  of  your  old  Cambridge  sur 
roundings,  —  and  they  must  seem  very  limited  after 
the  wide  life  you  have  been  living,  —  you  have  the 
latch-keys  of  two  Universities  in  your  pocket,  and  can 
suit  yourself  in  the  matter  of  localities.  Of  course 
we  all  hope  you  will  come  and  make  Elmwood  classical 
again. 

I  am  afraid  that  my  words  as  well  as  my  handwrit 
ing  betray  the  strain  through  which  my  nervous  sys 
tem  has  been  passing  —  but  I  hope  to  be  all  right 
before  your  return. 


BEVERLY  FARMS,  July  19, 1888. 

MY  DEAR  JAMES,  —  The  enclosed  printed  paper, 
sent  to  me  to  send  to  you,  must  be  my  apology  for 
writing  when  I  have  nothing  to  tell  you  of  interest 
outside  of  my  own  affairs  —  which  I  love  to  think  are 
not  wholly  without  some  interest  for  you.  Here  I 


TO   JAMES   RUSSELL   LOWELL  135 

am,  then,  in  a  really  pleasant  country  house,  living 
with  my  daughter,  seeing  little  company  of  course, 
but  now  and  then  a  pilgrim  in  the  shape  of  an  inter 
viewer  or  a  sight-seer,  who  fancies  that  I  am  worth  a 
visit.  I  am  writing  nothing  at  present  —  I  feel  that 
sat  prata  biberunt  from  my  cistern,  at  least  until  the 
springs  have  filled  it  up,  which  it  is  rather  late  in  life  to 
look  for.  I  have  taken  some  interest  in  other  people's 
projects  lately,  —  in  some  tree-portraits  which  Mr. 
Henry  Brooks  is  getting  up,  and  for  which  I  have 
written  an  introduction,  —  in  a  Slang,  etc.,  Diction 
ary  which  Leland  is  going  to  publish,  —  I  referred 
him  to  you  for  Yankee  phrases,  which  you  know  bet 
ter  than  anybody  else,  —  in  a  new  Library  of  Amer- 
can  Literature  in  ten  volumes,  large  octavo,  edited 
by  E.  C.  Stedman  and  Ellen  M.  Hutchinson,  of  which 
I  received  four  volumes  yesterday,  with  a  promise  of 
the  others,  as  they  are  issued.  You  will,  no  doubt, 
receive  a  complimentary  copy  in  due  season.  Much 
good  may  it  do  you  !  I  have  often  referred  to  Duyck- 
inck's  Cyclopaedia  of  American  Literature,  not  al 
ways  without  interest.  I  have  barely  looked  into  this 
work,  which  begins  with  Captain  John  Smith,  and  in 
its  fourth  volume  reaches  Buckminster  and  William 
Tudor.  How  is  he  —  are  they  —  going  to  fill  six  more 
volumes  after  1820  ?  I  think  you  will  have  to  come 
in  for  a  good  large  contribution. 

I  am  living  as  agreeably  as  is  possible  under  my 
conditions.  .  .  .  But  in  the  mean  time  my  sight  grows 
dimmer,  my  hearing  grows  harder,  and  I  don't  doubt 
my  mind  grows  duller.  But  you  remember  what  Lan- 
dor  said  :  that  he  was  losing  his  mind,  but  he  did  n't 
mind  that,  —  he  was  losing  or  had  lost  his  teeth  — 
that  was  his  chief  affliction.  Between  nature  and  art 


136  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

I  get  on  very  well  in  the  dental  way,  —  as  for  the 
mental,  I  will  not  answer.  The  last  years  of  a  pro 
tracted  life  are  made  tolerable  by  a  series  of  natural 
anodynes,  which  blunt  the  sensibilities  to  some  extent 
at  sixty  or  seventy,  and  after  that  go  on  benumbing 
one  nerve-tip  after  another  until,  if  we  live  long 
enough,  we  come  to  a  state  of  passive  apathy.  It  is 
hardly  right  for  me  to  say  this,  for  I  am  pretty  thor 
oughly  alive  yet.  But  just  now  I  feel  no  inclination 
to  write,  —  perhaps  when  autumn  comes  I  may  feel 
more  like  it.  You  have  many  bright  years  before 
you,  but  next  month  brings  me  to  the  beginning  of 
my  80th  year  (how  those  figures  look  !),  and  not  much 
can  be  looked  for  after  that.  No  matter  —  I  have 
said  most  of  what  I  had  to  say. 

I  told  you  I  had  nothing  to  write  about.  You 
have,  and  when  you  have  nothing  better  to  do  I  shall 
be  delighted  to  hear  from  you. 

(I  send  one  of  my  encyclicals,  cut  from  a  note  of 
proper  form  and  dimensions.) 

January  2,  1891. 

MY  DEAR  JAMES,  —  Your  beautiful  present  of  your 
collected  works  lies  on  my  table  in  my  reception-room, 
or  lesser  library,  waiting  for  me  to  make  a  place 
of  honor  for  it  on  the  shelves  near  my  hand  in  my 
library  proper.  I  shall  have  to  ask  certain  great  au 
thors,  whom  if  I  named  you  might  accuse  me  of  flat 
tery,  to  lie  a  little  closer,  or  to  go  up  a  shelf  higher,  to 
give  your  volumes  place.  I  hope  you  will  add  two  or 
three  or  more  volumes  to  the  noble  collection,  before 
you  lay  down  your  pen.  It  is  such  a  comfort,  when 
one  gets  a  shining  New  Year's  or  Christmas  gift,  to 


TO   JAMES   RUSSELL   LOWELL  137 

read  upon  it  the  word  sterling.  I  might  say  that 
of  your  literary  work,  only  we  do  not  have  to  look  to 
find  the  hall-mark. 

You  and  I  meet  in  a  work  which  has  greatly  taken 
my  fancy,  —  Mr.  Henry  Brooks's  account  of  some  of 
our  great  Massachusetts  elms  and  other  trees.  I  sug 
gested  the  work  thirty  years  ago,  and  gave  him  the 
hint  of  the  five-feet-long  rod,  or  wand,  to  give  an  idea 
of  the  size  of  the  trees.  I  wrote  the  Introduction, 
and  I  found  you  were  ahead  of  me  after  all.  For 
Mr.  Brooks  found  his  leading  [?]  poetical  motto  in 
your  verse.  I  am  glad  we  come  together,  even  if  I 
get  the  worst  of  it. 

Our  poor  old  raft  of  eighteen-twenty-niners  is  going 
to  pieces  ;  for  the  first  time  no  class  meeting  is  called 
for  the  8th  of  January.  I  shall  try  to  get  the  poor 
remnant  of  the  class  together  at  my  house  ;  but  it  is 
doubtful  whether  there  is  life  enough  left  for  a  gath 
ering  of  half  a  dozen.  I  have  a  very  tender  feeling 
to  my  coevals.  You  are  not  old  enough  to  have  a 
right  to  my  octogenarian  sensibilities  and  sentimen- 
talism  ;  but  for  want  of  older  friends  you  must  share 
in  these  clinging  and  lingering  affections  which  the 
penultimate  sometimes  if  rarely  indulges  toward  the 
antepenultimate  of  a  decade  younger  date.  The  hon 
est  truth  is,  that  the  eighth  decade  is  so  loaded  with 
bodily  and  mental  infirmities  in  a  great  majority  of 
cases,  that  the  survivors,  who  find  themselves  in  it, 
have  a  sympathy  with  each  other  which  the  lusty  sep 
tuagenarian  can  hardly  share.  Your  temporary  ail 
ment  has  brought  you  nearer  to  us  for  a  while,  but 
when  you  get  all  right  and  have  been  so  for  a  time, 
you  will  heartily  [?]  realize  the  difference  between 


138  OLIVER   WENDELL    HOLMES 

your  vital  conditions  and  those  of  Whittier  and  my 
self.  Among  other  octogenarian  weaknesses  the  habit 
of  prosing,  as  you  see,  is  very  noticeable ;  so  I  will  say 
no  more,  but  thank  you  again  most  warmly  for  your 
beautiful  gift,  and  assure  you  of  my  long-cherished 
admiring  affection. 


H.  TO  JAMES  WILLIAM   KIMBALL 

December  10,  1858. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  write  to  thank  you  for  your 
kind  and  truly  Christian  letter.  The  only  regret  I 
have  felt  was,  that  you  seemed  too  fearful  of  giving 
offence.  There  is  no  need  of  further  debate  —  we 
understand  each  other  pretty  well  —  kind  souls  both ; 
and  both,  I  believe,  after  the  truth. 

It  is  well  for  me  to  have  corresponded  with  you 
in  one  way,  because  it  will  make  me  more  cautious 
of  giving  offence  ;  bad  in  another  way,  for  the  good 
ness  of  men  holding  to  ancient  beliefs  is  the  greatest 
obstacle  to  new  truths  —  and  as  no  past  century  has 
failed  to  bequeath  us  new  views  in  religion,  somebody 
must  give  us  new  light  in  this.  I  should  like  to  help, 
if  I  might ;  but  though  I  have  been  sometimes  rudely 
and  (even  of  late)  needlessly  attacked  on  erroneous 
[representations]  of  what  I  have  said,  I  do  not  like  to 
offend  good  people  ;  and  if  I  err  in  this  way  it  is  as 
Saul  did,  thinking  he  was  doing  God  service.  But  if 
somebody  had  not  been  offended  a  century  ago,  we 
should  now  have  been  hanging  each  other's  grand 
mothers  for  witches. 

I  hope  to  send  you  a  copy  of  my  book  in  a  few  days, 
when  I  get  some  that  are  to  my  taste.  I  should  like 
a  copy  of  your  little  book,  referred  to.  I  have  not 
finished  the  other  yet,  but  shall  do  it  soon. 


140  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

March  8,  1860. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  Lectures  being  over,  I  am  going 
to  fulfil  my  promise,  or  threat,  and  send  you  a  few 
thoughts  on  the  subjects  of  your  letter. 

Let  me  begin  with  two  remarks. 

First,  I  have  great  pleasure  in  hearing  you,  or  hear 
ing  from  you,  because  I  am  entirely  convinced  of  your 
kind  spirit  and  sincerity,  and  that  your  Christianity 
has  its  true  seat  —  in  the  heart. 

Secondly,  I  have  not  the  least  personal  desire  to 
change  any  other  person's  faith,  who  lives  in  peace 
with  God  and  man,  except  just  so  far  as  he  is  an 
aggressive  spiritual  neighbor.  One  of  my  women 
goes  to  Mr.  Kirk's,  a  very  good  young  woman,  I 
think.  Two  others  are  Roman  Catholics ;  both  of 
them  are  models.  I  have  no  disposition  to  meddle 
with  the  belief  of  either.  Heaven  has  more  gates 
than  Thebes  ever  had,  I  believe,  and  I  cannot  suppose 
that  these  people,  or  any  others,  must  borrow  my  key. 
But  though  I  do  not  wish  to  make  proselytes  to  my 
creeds,  positive  or  negative,  I  like  to  state  my  beliefs 
to  those  who  are  inquiring ;  and  these  of  course  are 
principally  young  persons,  and  especially  of  the  in 
tellectual  classes.  I  have  less  hesitation,  as  the  old 
traditional  Westminster  Catechism  system  has  shown 
itself,  in  my  experience,  a  dead  failure,  as  I  explained 
to  you  the  other  day.  I  will  now  touch  your  principal 
points  briefly,  to  show  how  they  strike  my  apprehen 
sion.  1.  "  Gaining  "  by  truth  —  "  comfort "  from 
adopting  this  or  that  view.  I  accept  such  ideas  and 
language  as  appropriate  to  the  "  Retreat  for  aged  and 
infirm  women,"  but  not  for  you  or  me.  Truth  is  often 
very  ^comfortable.  If  that  has  anything  to  do  with 
your  accepting  it,  I  shall  have  to  say :  "  Good-morn- 


TO   JAMES  WILLIAM  KIMBALL  141 

ing,  Mr.  Kimball,  —  we  had  better  not  waste  each 
other's  time  in  talking  about  these  matters."  I  can't 
help  it  whether  I  gain  or  lose  by  a  truth ;  I  must 
accept  it.  "  But,  Doctor,  your  views  are  [not]  neces 
sarily  truth."  "Very  possibly,  Mr.  Kimball.  But 
if  you  begin  by  saying  that  your  personal  interest  — 
your  profit  —  your  comfort  are  to  enter  into  an  astro 
nomical,  geological,  ethnological,  or  other  scientific 
question  you  and  I  are  to  discuss,  as  an  element  for 
the  solution  of  it,  I  say  again :  4  Good-morning,  Mr. 
Kimball.' " 

2.  If  you  choose  to  accept  that  hypothesis  I  men 
tioned,  and  which  seems  to  have  struck  you,  viz.,  that 
the  world  was  created  with  mock  skeletons  of  almost 
innumerable  mock  genera  and  species,  many  of  them 
holding  the  remains  of  mock  food  in  their  mock  in 
teriors,  and  with  their  teeth  ground  down  as  if  by 
long  use  ;  in  other  words,  if  you  choose  to  believe  the 
Creator  the  prototype  of  charlatans  and  jugglers,  I 
shall  have  to  say  again,  always  with  perfect  respect 
and  courtesy :  '  Good-morning,  Mr.  Kimball.'  " 

3.  My  statistics  of  clergymen,  schoolmasters,  chil 
dren,  showing  the   average   results  of   the   technical 
"  evangelical "  culture,  must  not  be  made  too  much  of. 
So  far  as  they  go,  they  prove  that  a  very  large  per 
centage  of   very  bad  men   are   formed   under   these 
influences ;  but  everybody  knows  that  a  great  many 
good  men  grow  up  in  this  as  in  every  form  of  faith. 
I  have  full  confidence  that  in  your  own  case  your 
articles  of  belief  are  entirely  consistent  with  love  and 
good-will   to    all   men;   though  what  you   mean   by 
"  freedom  from  solicitude   of  all  kinds,"  and  "  equa 
nimity  "  in  the  prospect  that  the  vast  majority  of  these 
fellow-creatures,  whom  you  love,  are  to  wallow  in  fire 


142  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

forever,  I  cannot  understand.  Perhaps  you  do  not 
believe  this ;  then  you  take  the  liberty  to  exercise 
your  reason  in  accepting,  or  rejecting,  or  explaining 
away,  a  scriptural  doctrine  ;  which  is  all  that  I  do,  — 
or  am  supposed  to  do. 

4.  The  Fall  of  Man.  If  the  book  of  Genesis  is  a 
mere  collection  of  beliefs  and  traditions,  most  of  which 
God  hath  in  these  last  days  flatly  contradicted  out  of 
his  own  authentic  bibles  of  the  firmament  and  the 
planetary  strata,  why  of  course  the  story  of  the  Fall 
of  Man  must  share  the  fate  of  Deucalion's  deluge. 

I  don't,  therefore,  enter  upon  the  discussion  of  your 
questions  of  the  origin  of  evil,  etc.,  and  your  diffi 
culties  about  it.  All  our  present  concern  is,  whether 
we  have  an  authentic  Divine  communication  in  the 
book  of  Genesis.  The  most  influential  priesthood  the 
world  ever  saw,  more  than  half  of  them  bound  hand 
and  foot  in  Romanism,  are  bribed  by  everything  this 
world  can  offer  —  money,  place,  prejudice,  fear,  hope 
—  to  maintain  Genesis  to  be  literally  the  word  of 
God,  —  and  yet  the  belief  is  weakening  every  day, 
and  bids  fair  in  a  generation  or  two  to  belong  only 
to  the  ignorant  and  the  hirelings  of  ecclesiasticism. 
Very  uncomfortable,  no  doubt,  to  Galileo,  to  Dean 
Buckland,  who  went  crazy,  to  Hugh  Miller,  who  blew 
his  brains  out  —  some  say  because  they  were  uncom 
fortable  ! 

Perhaps  you  will  say  nothing  of  importance  has  been 
disproved  in  Genesis.  Please  to  mark  this :  every 
statement  in  that  book  has  always  been  defended  as 
important  until  the  advance  of  knowledge  has  ren 
dered  it  utterly  untenable  ;  then  it  becomes  unimpor 
tant  ;  and  yet  every  commentator  is  seizing  every 
external  fact  in  corroboration  of  these  early  books, 


TO   JAMES   WILLIAM   KIMBALL  143 

while  he  rejects  all  that  invalidate  their  authority, 
first  as  faults,  and,  as  I  have  said,  when  science  has 
annihilated  that  ground,  as  unimportant!  Exam 
ples  :  Astronomy  :  1.  It  is  a  lie  that  the  earth  moves 
round  the  sun.  2.  Science  proves  the  lie  is  true. 
3.  Of  no  importance  whether  the  earth  moves  round 
the  sun  or  not.  Cosmogony :  The  world  was  made 
six  thousand  years  ago.  Deluge  all  over  the  earth 
four  thousand  years  ago.  Geology  proves  a  universal 
deluge.  Wonderful  confirmation  of  Genesis.  (See 
Buckland's  old  book,  Reliquiae  Diluviance.)  Science 
moves  on  a  generation.  Universal  deluge  not  a  fact, 
not  possible.  World  million  of  ages  old.  Some 
shut  their  eyes  and  hoot  at  Geology.  Some  say  it  is 
unimportant.  Some  invent  nonsensical  tricks,  like 
the  make  believe  system  already  referred  to.  So  of 
the  history  of  the  race,  etc. 

If  any  of  the  distinct  statements  of  Genesis  are 
proved  erroneous,  of  course  the  "  Fall  of  Man  "  and 

the  old  dogma, 

"  In  Adam's  fall 
We  sinne-d  all," 

become  a  mere  legend. 

If  the  truth  of  the  statements  in  Genesis  about 
creation  is  an  open  question,  then  the  Fall  of  Man  is 
an  open  question  also,  and  no  open  question  is  to  be 
assumed  as  a  truth  of  Divine  Revelation. 

5.  Re-generation.  Re-creation.  Re-formation.  All 
figurative  terms.  Sometimes  there  is  a  sudden  and 
great  change  of  character,  —  a  slaver  sea-captain  be 
comes  a  saint  (John  Newton).  In  such  a  case  it  is  as 
proper  to  say  a  man  is  re-generated  as  to  say  that  an 
overworked  minister  is  "  another  man "  after  six 
months  of  re-creation.  But  in  most  cases  of  even 


144  OLIVEB  WENDELL  HOLMES 

distinct  conversion  the  change  of  character  is  very 
partial,  and  it  is  never  total.  Every  sensible  Deacon 
knows  that  his  church  members  continue  to  love 
money,  power,  place,  pretty  faces,  good  dinners,  etc. 
Perhaps  not  as  much  as  before  re-generation  or  re 
formation,  but  so  as  to  be  easily  managed  by  one  or 
the  other  of  these  influences. 

The  fatal  effect  of  misinterpreting  this  figurative 
expression  is  seen  in  education.  It  poisons  the  train 
ing  of  children  from  the  cradle  to  treat  them  as  nat 
ural  haters  of  God.  I  know  no  other  way  to  account 
for  the  shocking  effects  I  have  seen,  and  everybody 
has  constantly  seen,  from  these  doctrines  in  families. 
You  remember  a  striking  series  I  gave  you  in  detail. 
I  grant,  however,  that  with  a  certain  number  of  chil 
dren,  especially  the  feeble,  the  scrofulous,  the  con 
sumptive,  they  produce  a  sickly  saintliness  which  is 
often  interesting,  though  in  the  larger  sense  abnormal. 
I  much  prefer  persons  who  have  been  trained  to  spir 
itual  life  —  (Train  up  a  child,  etc.)  —  to  those  who 
have  been  changed  to  it.  That  is  just  exactly  the 
advantage  of  our  Christian  civilization :  that  the  new 
birth  is,  as  it  were,  hereditary  in  the  better  races, 
so  that  a  good  proportion  of  children  will  grow  up 
spiritually-minded,  if  they  are  treated  as  Christ  would 
have  treated  them  (Of  such  is  the  K.  of  H.),  and 
not  cut  down  to  the  roots,  as  fast  as  they  sprout,  by 
a  soul-withering  dogma.  At  the  same  time  I  wish 
you  distinctly  to  observe  that  I  recognize  sudden 
changes  of  character  as  one  of  the  means  by  which  the 
Spirit  of  God  reclaims  those  who  have  wandered  from 
the  path  in  which  they  have  been  or  should  have  been 
trained. 

I  know  some  persons  I  should  be  very  glad  to  see 


TO   JAMES   WILLIAM   KIMBALL  145 

"  converted."  But  the  finest  characters  and  noblest 
souls  I  have  met  have  never  been  through  any  such 
technical  process.  Its  frequency  and  phenomena  ap 
pear  to  depend  very  much  on  the  grade  of  intelligence 
and  social  position. 

Holy  affections  are  what  we  want,  I  suppose.  The 
great  majority  of  "  converted "  persons  I  have  met 
with  could  not  be  distinguished  from  other  people  by 
any  outward  evidence  of  possessing  them.  On  the 
other  hand,  I  have  seen  abundant  evidence  of  them  in 
many  persons  to  whom  the  very  phraseology  of  "  con 
version  "  would  sound  strange  and  unfamiliar.  "  Ah, 
but,  Doctor,  they  had  not  the  supreme  love  of  God. 
They  did  not  love  Him  with  all  their  soul,  with  all 
their  mind,  strength,  etc."  I  answer,  Nobody  does. 
The  command  is  a  mere  figure  and  hyperbole.  If 
for  instance,  a  man  loved  God  with  all  his  mind,  he 
could  not  spare  a  part  of  his  mind  to  give  attention 
to  any  earthly  object.  But  we  are  commanded  to 
love  our  neighbors,  our  wives,  our  husbands,  even  our 
enemies,  each  of  whom  will  require  a  portion  of  our 
mind  to  be  either  loved  or  hated.  Therefore,  if  we 
obey  this  command,  we  cannot  love  God  with  all  our 
mind.  If  we  love  God  with  all  our  mind  we  cannot 
obey  this  command. 

The  only  way  I  can  judge  whether  a  man  loves 
God  is  the  apostle  John's  way,  —  to  see  whether  he 
loves  his  brother  Applying  this,  I  do  not  think  the 
technical  "converts"  have  compared  favorably  with 
the  best  persons,  not  technical  "converts,"  I  have 
known,  or  with  the  Roman  Catholic  holy  men  and 
women. 

In  short,  I  consider  that  conversion  of  a  Jew  or  a 
heathen  to  a  new  religion  —  from  formalities  to  spir- 


146  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

itual  beliefs  and  affections  —  was  one  thing  ;  and  that 
education  in  a  Christian  community  and  family  ought 
to  be  a  kind  of  congenital  conversion,  and  very  com 
monly  is,  especially  in  the  cultivated  classes ;  so  that 
with  them  "  conversion  "  is  the  exception  and  Chris 
tian  nurture  the  rule,  while,  as  you  pass  downward  in 
the  social  scale,  "  conversion  "  is  the  rule  and  natural 
Christian  development  the  exception.  The  moral  and 
religious  standard  is  most  elevated,  I  think,  in  the 
higher  social  ranks,  where  development  is  the  rule. 
Observe  that  I  say  the  "  higher,"  not  the  highest,  for 
these  last  have  some  special  temptations.  I  have 
written  more  than  I  meant  to.  I  don't  know  that  I 
shall  want  to  take  the  trouble  to  write  another  letter, 
but  I  shall  be  very  happy  to  hear  from  you.  I  repeat 
it,  I  have  no  doubt  your  creed  agrees  with  you,  and 
that  under  it  your  Christian  affections  grow  and  flour 
ish.  I  have  not  the  least  desire  to  change  it,  if  you 
are  really  satisfied  with  it.  Like  all  other  good  and 
kind  men,  you  do  not  practically  carry  out  some  of  its 
legitimate  conclusions.  If  it  makes  you  happy  I  am 
glad,  but  I  cannot  forget  that  it  left  William  Cowper 
on  his  death-bed  in  "  unutterable  despair ;  "  and  I 
have  seen  enough  of  it  in  practice  to  feel  sure  that 
it  has  yet  something  to  gain  and  a  good  deal  to  be 
rid  of. 

March  18,  1860. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  return  the  extract,  which  I 
have  read  with  pleasure,  and  the  paper,  which  has 
furnished  me  amusement.  I  reciprocate  all  your 
kindly  feelings  most  cordially,  and  I  have  no  doubt 
that  if  all  the  "  evangelicals  "  I  have  known  had  had 
hearts  and  tempers  like  yours,  I  should  have  looked 


TO   JAMES   WILLIAM   KIMBALL  147 

less  critically  at  some  of  their  beliefs.  Let  me  repeat 
it,  —  I  have  no  wish  to  change  your  belief  in  anything, 
so  far  as  it  is  adapted  to  your  spiritual  nature  and 
necessities.  Much  of  it  I  share  with  you :  a  supreme 
and  absolute  faith  in  one  great  Father ;  a  revelation 
of  Himself,  "at  sundry  times  and  in  divers  man 
ners,"  —  infallibly  in  creation,  more  or  less  fallibly  in 
all  that  has  been  committed  to  human  tradition,  pre 
eminently  in  the  life  of  one  of  the  "  sons  of  God  " 
known  on  earth  as  the  Anointed,  of  whom  we  have 
some  imperfect  records.  That  religion  consists  in 
holy  affections,  the  evidence  of  which  is  in  righteous 
life.  If  you  believe  that  man  is  born  under  a  curse 
derived  from  Adam,  I  do  not.  If  you  believe  that  a 
finite  being  is  allowed  to  ruin  himself  forever,  I  do 
not.  At  any  rate  I  am  sure  you  hope  not.  If  you 
accept  the  whole  collection  of  tracts  called  "  the 
Bible  "  —  the  canon  of  which  represents  a  majority 
vote,  nothing  more  or  less,  —  as  infallible,  I  think 
your  ground  is  demonstrable/  untenable. 

You  and  I  may  like  to  exchange  opinions  sometimes 
on  special  points,  without  going  into  protracted  gen 
eral  discussions.  It  may  not  be  important  to  your 
"  salvation  "  to  hold  correct  opinions  on  many  points, 
where  truth  can  be  easily  reached  by  any  fair  in 
quirer  ;  but  to  your  rational  nature,  to  your  dignity 
as  a  being  entrusted  with  the  sacred  franchise  of 
thought,  it  may  be  very  important.  Heaven  will  not 
be  the  same  to  the  saint  who  has  slumbered  on  the 
pillow  of  tradition  as  to  him  who  has  kept  his  mind 
open  to  all  truth.  Whenever  we  can  fix  upon  any 
single  definite  point  in  which  we  are  interested,  I  shall 
always  be  pleased  to  compare  our  beliefs  and  their 
grounds. 


148  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

May  12,  1876. 

Many  thanks  for  your  kind  letter,  dear  Mr.  Kim- 
ball,  which  I  have  read  with  the  same  feeling  of  re 
spect  and  sympathetic  assent  to  much  of  it  as  I  have 
often  listened  to  your  conversation.  The  logic  of  the 
heart  is  too  strong  with  you  to  let  you  be  a  quite 
faultless  standard  of  dogmatic  theology ;  but  I  think 
the  mild,  vaccinated  form  of  that  complaint  is  not  so 
far  removed  from  health  by  any  means  as  the  old 
natural  disease  of  Calvinism.  I  shall  not  tell  you  just 
how  much  I  agree  with  you,  and  just  when  I  differ  or 
dispute,  but  content  myself  with  renewing  my  expres 
sion  of  thanks  for  the  interest  you  take  in  my  spirit 
ual  condition,  and  assuring  you  that  your  faith 
includes  what  I  hold  to  be  the  essentials  —  love  of 
man  and  love  of  goodness  —  to  the  latter  of  which 
you  may  give  what  name  you  choose,  but  which  I 
think  many  of  your  fellow-creatures  have  loved  and 
still  love  under  a  different  one. 


January  24,  1879. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  KIMBALL,  —  It  is  very  difficult  to 
carry  away  the  exact  meaning  of  a  somewhat  ram 
bling  conversation.  I  find  that  I  agree  with  most  of 
what  you  say  in  your  letter,  and,  so  far  as  I  can  see, 
you  have  somewhat  misinterpreted  my  expressions. 
King  David  was,  like  Burns,  much  given  to  women, 
but  he  had  the  finest  emotional  religious  nature  that 
has  recorded  itself,  and  we  are  all  too  glad  to  use  his 
words,  dearer  on  the  whole  to  us  than  any  other  ex 
cept  those  of  Christ  himself.  The  fact  that  Burns 
drank  and  lived  in  license  does  not  prevent  our  recog 
nizing  the  human  element,  which  makes  the  "  Cotter's 


TO   JAMES   WILLIAM   KIMBALL  149 

Saturday  Night  "  and  "  Auld  Lang  Syne  "  go  to  our 
hearts. 

You  misunderstand  iny  notions  of  government  in 
this  world.  I  only  repeat  the  scriptural  doctrine, 
that  the  physical  laws  to  which  all  are  submitted  have 
no  moral  discrimination.  If  you  do  not  like  my 
statement  of  the  proposition,  you  can  take  that  in  the 
thirteenth  chapter  of  Luke,  second  and  fourth  verses. 
I  mean  just  that  and  no  more.  Gravity  &  Co.  do 
not  trouble  themselves  about  moral  distinctions  —  a 
snow-slide  will  smash  a  saint  as  willingly  as  a  sinner 
—  so  these  verses  imply  —  so  we  feel  practically. 
The  rain  falls  on  just  and  unjust  —  the  sun  rises  on 
the  evil  and  the  good. 

Therefore  the  sense  of  justice  demands  a  rectifica 
tion  of  these  conditions  in  a  future  state  —  in  other 
words,  that  a  strictly  moral  government  shall  take  the 
place  of  the  present,  which  is  so  largely  physical. 
This  is  what  the  New  Testament  promise0  -  as  do 
other  and  older  religions  —  that  of  Egypt,  for  in 
stance. 

I,  like  you,  am  an  optimist  —  not  quite  so  confident, 
perhaps,  but  still  living  in  the  habitual  trust  that  this 
life  is  a  school,  the  seemingly  harsh  discipline  of  which 
will  be  explained  when  we  get  into  one  of  the  upper 
classes.  I  dare  not  say  that  we  are  sure  of  this ;  but 
it  is  the  only  belief  which  makes  life  worth  living. 
Some,  I  think,  will  say  they  are  as  sure  of  a  future 
life  as  of  this  —  but  many  good  people  speak  more 
modestly  and  hesitatingly.  They  hope ;  they  trust ; 
they  encourage  the  belief ;  live  in  it  and  die  in  it. 

So,  too,  I  agree  with  you  about  the  practical  effect 
of  the  doctrine  of  Retribution.  In  one  point  I  might 
not  stand  on  exactly  the  same  ground  with  yourself. 


150  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

I  consider  the  traditional  beliefs  so  firmly  grounded, 
especially  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  —  which  is 
the  only  one  logically  safe,  as  it  seems  to  me,  though 
I  am  far  from  a  Romanist,  —  I  consider  these  tra 
ditional  beliefs,  I  say,  so  firmly  grounded  that  the 
effects  of  such  truths  as  "  rationalists  "  have  charge  of 
and  proclaim  are  very  slow  and  gradual,  and  far  less 
dangerous  to  the  order  of  society  than  if  they  were 
easily  and  at  once  accepted.  There  are  some  beliefs 
I  myself  have  which  I  should  expect  and  rather  hope 
to  see  antagonized,  as  many  might  not  be  ready  to 
accept  them  without  injury. 

I  suppose  you  know  how  many  of  the  great  Dutch 
Biblical  scholars  deal  with  the  Hebrew  traditions.  If 
not,  you  should  get  hold  of  The,  Bible  for  Learners, 
translated  not  long  ago  and  republished  in  this  coun 
try.  I  am  afraid  our  Sunday-school  teachers  would 
have  hard  work  with  their  learners,  if  these  learners 
got  hold  of  the  teachings  of  these  learned  divines ; 
but  whatever  there  is  of  truth  in  them  will  work  its 
way  slowly  into  general  currency,  —  slowly ;  that  is 
the  safeguard.  In  that  way  the  belief  in  witchcraft 
went  out,  without  making  all  men  Sadducees,  as  it  was 
feared  its  disappearance  certainly  would. 

As  to  the  terrible  disadvantages  —  bad  blood  — 
neglected  education,  evil  example,  etc.,  to  which  so 
large  a  fraction  of  mankind  are  submitted,  all  that  is 
a  reason  to  demand,  as  well  as  expect,  a  future  state, 
if  the  world  has  a  moral  Governor. 

Even  as  to  the  being  "  born  again  "  I  am  not  so 
sure  that  we  might  not  partially  agree.  Love  and 
obedience  must  be  formed  in  the  character  somehow, 
before  it  is  fit  for  the  best  company.  Who  reported 
that  private  midnight  conversation,  whether  it  was 


TO   JAMES   WILLIAM   KIMBALL  151 

correctly  reported,  just  what  it  meant,  is  not  quite 
clear  to  me.  It  should  seem  there  was  nothing  in  it 
that  a  "  master  in  Israel "  should  not  have  been 
already  acquainted  with. 

I  do  not  want,  and  I  have  not  the  time,  to  discuss 
the  points  on  which  we  differ ;  but  I  am  happy  to 
point  out  some  on  which  we  agree. 

With  the  highest  regard  and  esteem,  I  am,  dear 
Mr.  Kimball, 

Very  sincerely  yours. 

January  20,  1883. 

MY  DEAK  MR.  KIMBALL,  —  Many  thanks  for  your 
letter  and  the  little  book,  which  I  read  immediately 
on  receiving  it.  All  spiritual  experiences  are  inter 
esting,  but  their  character  depends  greatly  on  tempera 
ment,  cheering  and  hopeful  in  a  man  like  yourself, 
despairing  and  suicidal  in  melancholic  persons  like 
Cowper. 

Your  Bible  is  my  Bible ;  but  you  have  only  to  look 
at  the  Biblical  literature  of  to-day  and  you  will  see 
that  the  collection  of  separate  treatises  knpwn  under 
that  name,  many  of  them  by  unknown  authors,  is 
studied  in  a  very  different  way  from  that  in  which 
our  parents  looked  at  it.  You  must  not  find  fault 
with  me  for  belonging  to  the  present,  when  you  see 
the  changes  that  have  shown  themselves  in  the  Church 
of  Scotland,  the  Church  of  England,  the  theological 
schools  of  New  Haven  and  Andover,  and  in  the  whole 
drift  of  opinion  on  the  subject  of  eschatology,  the 
Fall  of  Man,  and  the  other  doctrines  dependent  on 
this  last  conception  of  the  relation  of  the  race  to  its 
Creator.  We  cannot  go  back  to  the  mother's  womb 
of  old  beliefs. 


152  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

Are  you  not  rejoiced  beyond  all  expression  to  see 
that  there  is  a  growing  disbelief  in  the  doctrine  that  a 
great  part  of  mankind  are  doomed  to  everlasting  tor 
ture  with  fire  and  brimstone,  as  expressly  stated  in 
certain  too  familiar  texts  ? 

Are  you  not  glad  that  against  any  such  belief  is 
arrayed  that  other  statement :  "  God  is  love  "  ?  I 
know  you  must  be ;  and  so  you  need  not  take  the 
trouble  to  answer  my  questions. 


III.   TO  JOHN   LOTHROP   MOTLEY 

BOSTON,  February  16,  1861.1 

MY  DEAK  MOTLEY,  —  It  is  a  pleasing  coincidence 
for  me,  that  the  same  papers  which  are  just  announc 
ing  your  great  work,  are  telling  our  little  world  that 
it  can  also  purchase,  if  so  disposed,  my  modest  two- 
volume  story.  You  must  be  having  a  respite  from 
labor.  You  will  smile  when  I  tell  you  that  I  have 
my  first  vacation  since  you  were  with  us,  —  when  was 
it  ?  in  '57  ?  —  but  so  it  is.  It  scares  me  to  look  on 
your  labors,  when  I  remember  that  I  have  thought 
it  something  to  write  an  article  once  a  month  for  The 
Atlantic  Monthly;  that  is  all  I  have  to  show,  or 
nearly  all,  for  three  and  a  half  years ;  and  in  the  mean 
time  you  have  erected  your  monument  more  perennial 
than  bronze  in  these  two  volumes  of  alto  rilievo.  I 
will  not  be  envious,  but  I  must  wonder,  —  wonder  at 
the  mighty  toils  undergone  to  quarry  the  ore  before 
the  mould  could  be  shaped  and  the  metal  cast.  I 
know  you  must  meet  your  signal  and  unchallenged 
success  with  little  excitement,  for  you  know  too  well 
the  price  that  has  been  paid  for  it.  A  man  does  not 
give  away  the  best  years  of  a  manhood  like  yours, 
without  knowing  that  his  planet  has  got  to  pay  for 
his  outlay.  You  have  won  the  name  and  fame  you 
must  have  foreseen  were  to  be  the  accidents  of  your 
career.  I  hope,  as  you  partake  the  gale  with  your 

1  This  letter  has  been  already  printed  in  the  Motley  Corre 
spondence, 


154  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

illustrious  brethren,  you  are  well  ballasted  with  those 
other  accidents  of  successful  authorship. 

I  am  thankful,  for  your  sake,  that  you  are  out  of 
this  wretched  country.  There  was  never  anything,  in 
our  experience,  that  gave  any  idea  of  it  before.  Not 
that  we  have  had  any  material  suffering  as  yet.  Our 
factories  have  been  at  work,  and  our  dividends  have 
been  paid.  Society  —  in  Boston,  at  least  —  has  been 
nearly  as  gay  as  usual.  I  had  a  few  thousand  dollars 
to  raise  to  pay  for  my  house  in  Charles  Street,  and 
sold  my  stocks  for  more  than  they  cost  me.  We  have 
had  predictions,  to  be  sure,  that  New  England  was  to 
be  left  out  in  the  cold  if  a  new  confederacy  was  formed, 
and  that  the  grass  was  to  grow  in  the  streets  of  Bos 
ton.  But  prophets  are  at  a  terrible  discount  in  these 
times,  and,  in  spite  of  their  predictions,  Merrimac 
sells  at  $1125.  It  is  the  terrible  uncertainty  of  every 
thing —  most  of  all,  the  uncertainty  of  opinion  of  men, 
I  had  almost  said  of  principles.  From  the  impracti 
cable  Abolitionist,  as  bent  on  total  separation  from  the 
South  as  Carolina  is  on  secession  from  the  North,  to 
the  Hunker,  or  Submissionist,  or  whatever  you  choose 
to  call  the  wretch  who  would  sacrifice  everything  and 
beg  the  South's  pardon  for  offending  it,  you  find  all 
shades  of  opinion  in  our  streets.  If  Mr.  Seward  or 
Mr.  Adams  moves  in  favor  of  compromise,  the  whole 
Kepublican  party  sways,  like  a  field  of  grain,  before 
the  breath  of  either  of  them.  If  Mr.  Lincoln  says  he 
shall  execute  the  laws  and  collect  the  revenue,  though 
the  heavens  cave  in,  the  backs  of  the  Eepublicans 
stiffen  again,  and  they  take  down  the  old  Revolution 
ary  king's  arms,  and  begin  to  ask  whether  they  can  be 
altered  to  carry  minie  bullets. 

In  the  mean  time,  as  you  know  very  well,  a  mon- 


TO   JOHN   LOTHROP  MOTLEY  155 

strous  conspiracy  has  been  hatching  for  nobody  knows 
how  long,  barely  defeated,  in  its  first  great  move,  by 
two  occurrences,  —  Major  Anderson's  retreat  to  Fort 
Sumter,  and  the  exposure  of  the  great  defalcations. 
The  expressions  of  popular  opinion  in  Virginia  and 
Tennessee  have  encouraged  greatly  those  who  hope 
for  union  on  the  basis  of  a  compromise ;  but  this  even 
ing's  news  seems  to  throw  doubt  on  the  possibility 
of  the  North  and  the  Border  States  ever  coming  to 
terms;  and  I  see,  in  this  same  evening's  paper,  the 
threat  thrown  out  that,  if  the  Southern  ports  are 
blockaded,  fifty  regiments  will  be  set  in  motion  for 
Washington !  Nobody  knows  ;  everybody  guesses. 
Seward  seems  to  be  hopeful.  I  had  a  long  talk  with 
Banks ;  he  fears  the  formation  of  a  powerful  Southern 
military  empire,  which  will  give  us  trouble.  Mr. 
Adams  predicts  that  the  Southern  Confederacy  will 
be  an  ignominious  failure. 

A  Cincinnati  pamphleteer,  very  sharp  and  know 
ing,  shows  how  pretty  a  quarrel  they  will  soon  get  up 
among  themselves.  There  is  no  end  to  the  shades  of 
opinion.  Nobody  knows  where  he  stands  but  Wen 
dell  Phillips  and  his  out-and-outers.  Before  this 
political  cataclysm,  we  were  all  sailing  on  as  quietly 
and  harmoniously  as  a  crew  of  your  good  Dutchmen 
in  a  treckschuyt.  The  Club  has  flourished  greatly, 
and  proved  to  all  of  us  a  source  of  the  greatest  de 
light.  I  do  not  believe  there  ever  were  such  agreeable 
periodical  meetings  in  Boston  as  these  we  have  had  at 
Parker's.  We  have  missed  you,  of  course,  but  your 
memory  and  your  reputation  were  with  us.  The 
magazine  which  you  helped  to  give  a  start  to  has 
prospered,  since  its  transfer  to  Ticknor  &  Fields.  I 
suppose  they  may  make  something  directly  by  it,  and, 


156  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

as  an  advertising  medium,  it  is  a  source  of  great 
indirect  benefit  to  them.  No  doubt  you  will  like  to 
hear,  in  a  few  words,  about  its  small  affairs.  I  don't 
believe  that  all  the  Oxfords  and  Institutes  can  get  the 
local  recollections  out  of  you.  I  suppose  I  have  made 
more  money  and  reputation  out  of  it  than  anybody 
else,  on  the  whole.  I  have  written  more  than  anybody 
else,  at  any  rate.  Miss  Prescott's  stories  have  made 
her  quite  a  name.  Wentworth  Higginson's  articles 
have  also  been  very  popular.  Lowell's  critical  articles 
and  political  ones  are  always  full  of  point,  but  he  has 
been  too  busy  as  editor  to  write  a  great  deal.  As  for 
the  reputations  that  were  toutes  faites,  I  don't  know 
that  they  have  gained  or  lost  a  great  deal  by  what 
their  owners  have  done  for  The  Atlantic.  But,  oh ! 
such  a  belaboring  as  I  have  had  from  the  so-called 
"  evangelical "  press,  for  the  last  two  or  three  years, 
almost  without  intermission  !  There  must  be  a  great 
deal  of  weakness  and  rottenness,  when  such  extreme 
bitterness  is  called  out  by  such  a  good-natured  person 
as  I  can  claim  to  be  in  print.  It  is  a  new  experience 
to  me,  but  is  made  up  for  by  a  great  amount  of  sym 
pathy  from  men  and  women,  old  and  young,  and  such 
confidences  and  such  sentimental  epanchements,  that, 
if  my  private  correspondence  is  ever  aired,  I  shall  pass 
for  a  more  questionable  personage  than  my  domestic 
record  can  show  me  to  have  been. 

Come  now,  why  should  I  talk  to  you  of  anything 
but  yourself  and  that  wonderful  career  of  well-de 
served  and  hardly-won  success  which  you  have  been 
passing  through  since  I  waved  my  handkerchief  to 
you  as  you  slid  away  from  the  wharf  at  East  Boston  ? 
When  you  write  to  me,  as  you  will  one  of  these  days, 
I  want  to  know  how  you  feel  about  jour  new  posses- 


TO   JOHN  LOTKROP  MOTLEY  157 

sion,  a  European  name.  I  should  like  very  much, 
too,  to  hear  something  of  your  every-day  experiences 
of  English  life,  —  how  you  like  the  different  classes 
of  English  people  you  meet,  —  the  scholars,  the  upper 
class,  and  the  average  folk  that  you  may  have  to  deal 
with.  You  know  that,  to  a  Bostonian,  there  is  no 
thing  like  a  Bostonian's  impression  of  a  new  people 
or  mode  of  life.  We  all  carry  the  Common  in  our 
heads  as  the  unit  of  space,  the  State  House  as  the 
standard  of  architecture,  and  measure  off  men  in 
Edward  Everetts  as  with  a  yard-stick.  I  am  ashamed 
to  remember  how  many  scrolls  of  half-an-hour's  scrib- 
blings  we  might  have  exchanged  with  pleasure  on  one 
side,  and  very  possibly  with  something  of  it  on  the 
other.  I  have  heard  so  much  of  Miss  Lily's  praises, 
that  I  should  be  almost  afraid  of  her  if  I  did  not  feel 
sure  that  she  would  inherit  a  kindly  feeling  to  her 
father's  and  mother's  old  friend.  Do  remember  me  to 
your  children ;  and  as  for  your  wife,  who  used  to  be 
Mary  once,  and  whom  I  have  always  found  it  terribly 
hard  work  to  make  anything  else  of,  tell  her  how  we 
all  long  to  see  her  good,  kind  face  again. 

Give  me  some  stray  half  hour,  and  believe  me 
Always  your  friend. 


BOSTON,  November  29,  1861.1 

MY  DEAR  MOTLEY, —  I  know  you  will  let  me  begin 
with  my  personal  story,  for  you  have  heard  before  this 
time  about  Ball's  Bluff  and  its  disasters,  and  among 
them  that  my  boy  came  in  for  his  honorable  wounds. 
Wendell's  experience  was  pretty  well  for  a  youngster 

1  This  letter  has  been  already  printed  in  the  Motley  Corre 
spondence. 


158  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

of  twenty.  He  was  standing  in  front  of  his  men  when 
a  spent  ball  struck  him  in  the  stomach  and  knocked 
him  flat,  taking  his  wind  out  of  him  at  the  same  time. 
He  made  shift  to  crawl  off  a  little,  the  colonel,  at 
whose  side  he  was  standing,  telling  him  to  go  to  the 
rear.  Presently  he  began  to  come  right,  and  found  he 
was  not  seriously  injured.  By  the  help  of  a  sergeant 
he  got  up,  and  went  to  the  front  again.  He  had  hardly 
been  there  two  or  three  minutes  when  he  was  struck 
by  a  second  ball,  knocked  down,  and  carried  off.  His 
shirt  was  torn  from  him,  and  he  was  found  to  be  shot 
through  the  heart,  —  it  was  supposed  through  the 
lungs.  The  ball  had  entered  exactly  over  the  heart 
on  the  left  side,  and  come  out  on  the  right  side,  where 
it  was  found,  —  a  minie  ball.  The  surgeon  thought 
he  was  mortally  wounded  ;  and  he  supposed  so,  too. 
Next  day,  better ;  next  after  that,  wrote  me  a  letter. 
He  had  no  bad  symptoms,  and  it  became  evident  that 
the  ball  had  passed  outside  the  cavities  containing  the 
heart  and  lungs.  He  got  on  to  Philadelphia,  where 
he  stayed  a  week,  and  a  fortnight  ago  yesterday  I 
brought  him  to  Boston  on  a  bed  in  the  cars.  He  is 
now  thriving  well,  able  to  walk,  but  has  a  consider 
able  open  wound,  which,  if  the  bone  has  to  exfoliate, 
will  keep  him  from  camp  for  many  weeks  at  the  least. 
A  most  narrow  escape  from  instant  death  !  Wendell 
is  a  great  pet  in  his  character  of  young  hero  with 
wounds  in  the  heart,  and  receives  visits  en  grand 
seigneur.  I  envy  my  white  Othello,  with  a  semi 
circle  of  young  Desdemonas  about  him  listening  to 
the  often  told  story  which  they  will  have  over  again. 

You  know  how  well  all  our  boys  behaved.  In  fact, 
the  defeat  at  Ball's  Bluff,  disgraceful  as  it  was  to  the 
planners  of  the  stupid  sacrifice,  is  one  as  much  to  be 


TO  JOHN  LOTHKOP  MOTLEY  159 

remembered  and  to  be  proud  of  as  that  of  Bunker 
Hill.  They  did  all  that  men  could  be  expected  to  do, 
and  the  courage  and  energy  of  some  of  the  young  cap 
tains  saved  a  large  number  of  men  by  getting  them 
across  the  river  a  few  at  a  time,  at  the  imminent  risk 
on  their  own  part  of  being  captured  or  shot  while 
crossing. 

I  can  tell  you  nothing,  I  fear,  of  public  matters  that 
you  do  not  know  already.  How  often  I  thought  of 
your  account  of  the  Great  Armada,  when  our  own 
naval  expedition  was  off,  and  we  were  hearing  news 
from  all  along  the  coast  of  the  greatest  gale  which  had 
blown  for  years  !  It  seemed  a  fatality,  and  the  fears 
we  felt  were  unutterable.  Imagine  what  delight  it 
was  when  we  heard  that  the  expedition  had  weathered 
the  gale,  and  met  with  entire  success  in  its  most  im 
portant  object. 

February  3,  1862. 

MY  DEAR  MOTLEY,  —  I  got  your  letter  of  January 
14th  day  before  yesterday,  Saturday.  I  was  a  little 
out  of  spirits  yesterday,  on  account  of  ugly  rumors  as 
to  the  tone  of  the  English  press,  etc.,  which  had  the  ef 
fect  of  knocking  down  stocks  somewhat  in  New  York, 
and  dashing  our  sanguine  anticipations  a  little  for  the 
time.  This  morning  the  papers  tell  us  that  many  of 
these  representations  are  thought  to  be  mere  secession 
contrivances,  and  we  hear  from  Washington  that  the 
advices  from  foreign  Governments  were  never  so 
friendly  as  at  this  time.  They  begin  to  talk  about 
the  entente  cordiale  between  this  country  and  Eng 
land  as  like  to  be  reestablished  —  so  may  it  prove ! 
Not  that  England  can  ever  be  to  us  what  she  has 
been.  Those  sad  words  from  John  Bright's  letter 


160  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

have  expressed  the  feelings  that  have  sunk  deep  into 
the  hearts  of  all  (who  have  hearts  to  be  reached) 
among  us.  "  There  has  been  shown  [us]  no  gener 
osity,  such  as  became  a  friendly  nation,  and  no  sym 
pathy  with  [us]  in  [our]  great  calamity."  Those 
beautiful  breasts  of  our  "mother"  country,  from 
which  it  seemed  that  nothing  could  wean  us,  have 
shrivelled  into  the  wolf's  dugs,  and  there  is  no  more 
milk  in  them  for  us  henceforth  evermore.  The  West 
end  is  right.  Not  by  aggression,  but  by  the  naked 
fact  of  existence,  we  are  an  eternal  danger  and  an 
unsleeping  threat  to  every  government  that  founds 
itself  on  anything  but  the  will  of  the  governed.  We 
begin  to  understand  ourselves  and  what  we  represent, 
now  that  we  find  who  are  our  enemies,  and  why,  and 
how  they  would  garrote  us  now  that  our  hands  are  on 
these  felons'  throats,  if  they  could  paint  a  lie  over 
so  that  its  bones  would  not  show  through.  I  do  be 
lieve  Hell  is  empty  of  Devils  for  the  last  year,  this 
planet  has  been  so  full  of  them  helping  the  secession 
liars. 

You  don't  want  my  rhetoric,  but  plain  talk  about 
what  is  going  on.  We  are  generally  hopeful,  so  far 
as  I  hear  talk  around  me.  The  Mason  and  Slidell 
matter  has  long  been  in  the  silurian  strata  of  the  past. 
The  events  that  are  more  than  six  weeks  old  all  go 
with  pre-adamite  creations.  All  the  world  seemed  to 
think  Pilot  Seward  was  drifting  on  to  a  lee  shore,  and 
that  he  would  never  double  that  terrible  Cape  Fear  in 
the  distance.  Presently  he  heaves  in  sight,  canvas 
all  spread,  and  lo !  it  seems  the  wind  is  blowing  off 
the  shore,  as  it  has  been  any  time  these  fifty  years. 

Confidence  holds  good  in  McClellan,  I  feel  well 
assured.  The  Tribune  attacks  him ;  some  grumble  at 


TO  JOHN  LOTHROP  MOTLEY         161 

delays  ;  but  I  believe  the  wisest  heads  are  as  yet  rea 
sonably  patient.  They  know  that  the  Virginian  roads 
are  impracticable  at  this  particular  time.  They  know 
the  enlistment  period  of  many  of  the  rebel  troops  is 
about  to  expire  —  before  this  very  month  is  out.  It 
is  perfectly  plain  from  the  rebel  organs  that  the  delay 
is  telling  immensely  on  them ;  that  they  begin  to  feel 
the  pressure  of  the  cordon  sanitaire  which  is  drawing 
its  ring  of  fire  around  them. 

The  financial  business  seems  now  to  be  the  immedi 
ate  subject  of  doubts  and  differences  of  opinion.  I 
talked  with  Frank  Lowell  this  morning  about  it.  He 
did  not  profess  to  be  an  expert  in  finance  (though  he 
must  have  a  good  deal  of  acquaintance  with  it).  He 
thought  the  difficulty  was  in  Chase's  inexperience,  not 
providing  long  enough  beforehand  for  the  inevitable 
want  of  the  Treasury.  About  the  taxation  schemes, 
you  may  find  out  from  the  papers,  —  I  haven't  found 
out  what  the  scheme  is  which  is  likely  to  be  adopted. 
I  believe  our  people  are  worked  up  to  the  paying 
point,  which,  I  take  it,  is  to  the  fighting  point  as 
boiling  heat  (212°)  to  blood  heat  (98°). 

When  I  write  you  letters  you  must  take  my  igno 
rance  with  my  knowledge,  and  I  know  rather  less  of 
finance  than  you  do  of  medicine.  I  have  always 
thought  that  if  I  had  passed  a  year  or  two  in  a  count 
ing-room  it  would  have  gone  far  towards  making  a 
sensible  man  of  me.  But  I  have  no  doubt  you  have 
other  friends  who  can  tell  you  what  there  is  to  be  told, 
not  found  in  the  papers,  on  this  matter  of  finance  and 
currency.  I  only  know  there  is  a  great  split  about 
making  government  paper  legal  tender,  and  if  I  could 
see  Bill  Gray  five  minutes  just  at  this  point,  could 
find  out  where  the  pinch  is,  and  what  kept  him  awake 


VOL.  II. 


162  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

a  week  or  two  ago,  as  I  hear  something  did,  thinking 
about  it. 

I  have  told  you  I  am  hopeful,  and  always  have  been. 
Hands  off,  and  we  11  lick  these  fellows  out  of  their 
insolent  adjectives.  We  did  lick  'em  well  at  Mill 
Spring  the  other  day,  and  at  Drainsville  a  little  before 
this,  and,  I  myself  entertain  no  manner  of  doubt,  can 
whip  them  man  for  man  at  any  time,  in  a  fair  field, 
picked  against  picked,  average  against  average.  We 
are  the  conquerors  of  Nature,  they  of  Nature's  weaker 
children.  We  thrive  on  reverses  and  disappointments. 
I  have  never  believed  they  could  endure  them.  Like 
Prince  Kupert's  drops,  the  unannealed  fabric  of  rebel 
lion  shuts  an  explosive  element  in  its  resisting  shell 
that  will  rend  it  in  pieces  as  soon  as  its  tail,  not  its 
head,  is  broken  fairly  off.  That  is  what  I  think,  —  I, 
safe  prophet  of  a  private  correspondence,  free  to  be 
convinced  of  my  own  ignorance  and  presumption  by 
events  as  they  happen,  and  to  prophesy  again  —  for 
what  else  do  we  live  for  but  to  guess  the  future  in 
small  things  or  great,  that  we  may  help  to  shape  it,  or 
ourselves  to  it. 

Your  last  letter  was  so  full  of  interest,  by  the  ex 
pression  of  your  own  thought  and  the  transcripts  of 
those  of  your  English  friends  —  especially  the  words 
of  John  Bright,  one  of  the  two  foreigners  that  I  want 
to  see  and  thank  —  the  other  being  Count  Gasparin  — 
that  I  feel  entirely  inadequate  to  make  any  fitting 
return  for  it.  I  meet  a  few  wise  persons,  who  for  the 
most  part  know  little  —  some  who  know  a  good  deal, 
but  are  not  wise.  I  was  at  a  dinner  at  Parker's  the 
other  day  where  Governor  Andrew  and  Emerson,  and 
various  unknown  dingy-linened  friends  of  progress, 
met  to  hear  Mr.  Conway,  the  not  unfamous  Unitarian 


TO  JOHN  LOTHROP  MOTLEY         163 

minister  of  Washington,  Virginia-born,  with  seven 
teen  secesh  cousins,  fathers,  and  other  relatives,  tell 
of  his  late  experience  at  the  seat  of  Government.  He 
had  talked  awhile  with  father  Abraham,  who,  as  he 
thinks,  is  honest  enough,  but  simply  incompetent  and 
without  a  plan.  I  don't  know  that  his  opinion  is  good 
for  much.  He  is  an  out-and-out  immediate  emanci 
pationist,  —  believes  that  is  the  only  way  to  break  the 
strength  of  the  South ;  that  the  black  man  is  the  life 
of  the  South  ;  that  they  dread  work  above  all  things, 
and  cling  to  the  slave  as  the  drudge  that  makes  life 
tolerable  to  them.  He  believes  that  the  blacks  know 
all  that  is  said  and  done  with  reference  to  them  in  the 
North ;  their  longing  for  freedom  is  unalterable ;  that 
once  assured  of  it  under  Northern  protection,  the 
institution  would  be  doomed.  I  don't  know  whether 
you  remember  Con  way's  famous  "  One  Path  "  sermon 
of  six  or  eight  years  ago.  It  brought  him  immediately 
into  notice.  I  think  it  was  Judge  Curtis  (Ben)  who 
commended  it  to  my  attention.  He  talked  with  a 
good  deal  of  spirit.  I  know  you  would  have  gone 
with  him  in  his  leading  ideas.  Speaking  of  the  com 
munication  of  knowledge  among  the  slaves,  he  said 
if  he  stood  on  the  upper  Mississippi  and  proclaimed 
emancipation,  it  would  be  told  in  New  Orleans  before 
the  telegraph  would  carry  the  news  there  ! 

I  am  busy  with  my  lectures  at  the  college,  and  don't 
see  much  of  the  world.  But  I  will  tell  you  what  I 
see  and  hear  from  time  to  time,  if  you  like  to  have 
me.  I  gave  your  message  to  the  Club,  who  always 
listen  with  enthusiasm  when  your  name  is  mentioned. 
My  boy  is  here  —  still  detailed  on  recruiting  duty  — 
quite  well.  I  hope  you  are  all  well  and  free  from  all 
endemic  visitations,  such  as  Sir  Thomas  Browne  refers 


164  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

to  when  he  says  that  "  cholical  persons  will  find  little 
comfort  in  Austria  or  Vienna." 

P.  S.  Our  last  accounts  from  the  Burnside  expe 
dition,  which  had  such  a  hard  time  getting  to  its 
destination,  are  all  very  encouraging. 


BOSTON,  21  CHARLES  STREET, 
August  29,  1862.1 

MY  DEAR  MOTLEY,  —  1  don't  know  how  I  can  em 
ploy  the  evening  of  my  birthday  better  than  by  sitting 
down  and  beginning  a  letter  to  you.  I  have  heard  of 
your  receiving  my  last,  and  that  you  meant  to  reply 
to  it  soon.  But  this  was  not  in  the  bond,  and  whether 
you  write  or  not,  I  must  let  you  hear  from  me  from 
time  to  time.  I  know  what  you  must  endure  with  a 
non-conductor  of  a  thousand  leagues  between  you  and 
this  great  battery,  which  is  sending  its  thrill  through 
us  every  night  and  morning.  I  know  that  every  dif 
ferent  handwriting  on  an  envelope,  if  it  comes  from  a 
friend,  has  its  special  interest,  for  it  will  give  an  im 
pression  in  some  way  differing  from  that  of  all  others. 
My  own  thoughts  have  been  turned  aside  for  a  while 
from  those  lesser  occurrences  of  the  day,  which  would 
occupy  them  at  other  times,  by  a  domestic  sorrow, 
which,  though  coming  in  the  course  of  nature,  and  at 
a  period  when  it  must  have  been  very  soon  inevitable, 
has  yet  left  sadness  in  mine  and  other  households. 
My  mother  died  on  the  19th  of  this  month  at  the  age 
of  ninety-three,  keeping  her  lively  sensibilities  and 
sweet  intelligence  to  the  last.  My  brother  John  had 
long  cared  for  her  in  the  most  tender  way,  and  it 

1  This  letter  has  been  already  printed  in  the   Motley  Corre- 


TO    JOHN   LOTHEOP   MOTLEY  165 

almost  broke  his  heart  to  part  with  her.  She  was  a 
daughter  to  him,  she  said,  and  he  had  fondly  thought 
that  love  and  care  could  keep  her  frail  life  to  the  fill 
ing  up  of  a  century  or  beyond  it.  It  was  a  pity  to 
look  on  him  in  his  first  grief ;  but  Time,  the  great  con 
soler,  is  busy  with  his  anodyne,  and  he  is  coming  back 
to  himself.  My  mother  remembered  the  Revolution 
well,  and  she  was  scared  by  the  story  of  the  redcoats 
coming  along  and  killing  everybody  as  they  went  — 
she  having  been  carried  from  Boston  to  Newburyport. 
Why  should  I  tell  you  this  ?  Our  hearts  lie  between 
two  forces,  —  the  near  ones  of  home  and  family,  and 
those  that  belong  to  the  rest  of  the  universe.  A  little 
magnet  holds  its  armature  against  the  dragging  of 
our  own  planet  and  all  the  spheres. 

I  had  hoped  that  my  mother  might  have  lived 
through  this  second  national  convulsion.  It  was 
ordered  otherwise,  and  with  the  present  prospects  I 
can  hardly  lament  that  she  was  spared  the  period  of 
trial  that  remains.  How  long  that  is  to  be  no  one  can 
predict  with  confidence.  There  is  a  class  of  men  one 
meets  with  who  seem  to  consider  it  due  to  their  ante 
cedents  to  make  the  worst  of  everything.  I  suppose 

may  be  one  of  these.     I  met  him  a  day  or 

two  since,  and  lost  ten  minutes  in  talk  with  him  on 
the  sidewalk  ;  lost  them,  because  I  do  not  wish  to  talk 
with  any  man  who  looks  at  this  matter  empirically  as 
an  unlucky  accident,  which  a  little  prudence  might 
have  avoided,  and  not  a  theoretical  necessity.  How 
ever,  he  said  to  me  that  the  wisest  man  he  knew  — 
somebody  whose  name  I  did  not  know  —  said  to  him 
long  ago  that  this  war  would  outlast  him,  an  old  man, 
and  his  companion  also,  very  probably.  You  meet 
another  man,  and  he  begins  cursing  the  Government 


166  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

as  the  most  tyrannical  one  that  ever  existed.  "  That 
is  not  the  question,"  I  answer.  "  How  much  money 
have  you  given  for  this  war  ?  How  many  of  your 
boys  have  gone  to  it  ?  How  much  of  your  own  body 

and  soul  have  you  given  to  it  ?  "     I  think  Mr. 

is  the  most  forlorn  of  all  the  Jeremiahs  I  meet 

with.  Faith ,  faith  is  the  only  thing  that  keeps  a 
man  up  in  times  like  these  ;  and  those  persons  who, 
by  temperament  or  under-feeding  of  the  soul,  are  in  a 
state  of  spiritual  anaemia,  are  the  persons  I  like  least 
to  meet,  and  try  hardest  not  to  talk  with. 

For  myself,  I  do  not  profess  to  have  any  political 
wisdom.  I  read,  I  listen,  I  judge  to  the  best  of  my 
ability.  The  best  talk  I  have  heard  from  any  of  our 
home  politicians  was  that  of  Banks,  more  than  a  year 
and  a  half  ago.  In  a  conversation  I  had  with  him, 
he  foreshadowed  more  clearly  the  plans  and  prospects, 
and  estimated  more  truly  the  resources,  of  the  South 
than  any  one  else  with  whom  I  had  met.  But  pro 
phets  in  America  and  Europe  have  been  at  a  very 
heavy  discount  of  late.  Count  Gasparin  seems  to  me 
to  have  the  broadest  and  keenest  understanding  of 
the  aims  and  ends  of  this  armed  controversy.  If  we 
could  be  sure  of  no  intermeddling,  I  should  have  no 
anxiety  except  for  individuals  and  for  temporary  in 
terests.  If  we  have  grown  unmanly  and  degenerate 
in  the  north  wind,  I  am  willing  that  the  sirocco 
should  sweep  us  off  from  the  soil.  If  the  course  of 
nature  must  be  reversed  for  us,  and  the  Southern 
Goths  must  march  to  the  "  beggarly  land  of  ice  "  to 
overrun  and  recolonize  us,  I  have  nothing  to  object. 
But  I  have  a  most  solid  and  robust  faith  in  the  ster 
ling  manhood  of  the  North,  in  its  endurance,  its 
capacity  for  a  military  training,  its  plasticity  for  every 


TO   JOHN   LOTHKOP  MOTLEY  167 

need,  in  education,  in  political  equality,  in  respect  for 
man  as  man  in  peaceful  development,  which  is  our 
law,  in  distinction  from  aggressive  colonization;  in 
human  qualities  as  against  bestial  and  diabolical 
ones ;  in  the  Lord  as  against  the  Devil.  If  I  never 
see  peace  and  freedom  in  this  land,  I  shall  have  faith 
that  my  children  will  see  it.  If  they  do  not  live  long 
enough  to  see  it,  I  believe  their  children  will.  The 
revelations  we  have  had  from  the  Old  World  have 
shed  a  new  light  for  us  on  feudal  barbarism.  We 
know  now  where  we  are  not  to  look  for  sympathy. 
But  oh !  it  would  have  done  your  heart  good  to  see  the 
processions  of  day  before  yesterday  and  to-day,  the  air 
all  aflame  with  flags,  the  streets  shaking  with  the  tramp 
of  long-stretched  lines,  and  only  one  feeling  showing 
itself,  the  passion  of  the  first  great  uprising,  only  the 
full  flower  of  which  that  was  the  opening  bud. 

There  is  a  defence  of  blubber  about  the  arctic 
creatures  through  which  the  harpoon  must  be  driven 
before  the  vital  parts  are  touched.  Perhaps  the 
Northern  sensibility  is  protected  by  some  such  encas 
ing  shield.  The  harpoon  is,  I  think,  at  last  through 
the  blubber.  In  the  mean  while  I  feel  no  doubt  in  my 
own  mind  that  the  spirit  of  hostility  to  slavery  as  the 
cause  of  this  war  is  speedily  and  certainly  increasing. 
They  were  talking  in  the  cars  to-day  of  Fremont's 
speech  at  the  Tremont  Temple  last  evening.  His  al 
lusions  to  slavery  —  you  know  what  they  must  have 
been  —  were  received  with  an  applause  which  they 
would  never  have  gained  a  little  while  ago.  Nay,  I 
think  a  miscellaneous  Boston  audience  would  be  more 
like  to  cheer  any  denunciation  of  slavery  now  than 
almost  any  other  sentiment. 

Wednesday     evening,    September    3d.       I    have 


168  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

waited  long  enough.  We  get  the  most  confused  and 
unsatisfactory  yet  agitating  rumors.  Pope  seems  to 
be  falling  back  on  the  capital  after  having  got  the 
worst  of  it  in  a  battle  on  the  30th.  Since  that  there 
has  been  little  fighting  so  far  as  we  know,  but  this 
noon  we  get  a  story  that  Stonewall  Jackson  is  march 
ing  by  Leesburg  on  Baltimore,  and  yesterday  we 
learned  that  Cincinnati  is  in  imminent  danger  of  a 
rebel  invasion.  How  well  I  remember  the  confidence 
that  you  expressed  in  General  Scott,  —  a  confidence 
which  we  all  shared  !  The  old  General  had  to  give 
up,  and  then  it  was  nothing  but  McClellan.  But  do 
not  think  that  the  pluck  or  determination  of  the 
North  has  begun  to  yield.  There  never  was  such  a 
universal  enthusiasm  for  the  defence  of  the  Union 
and  the  trampling  out  of  rebellion  as  at  this  perilous 
hour.  I  am  willing  to  believe  that  many  of  the 
rumors  we  hear  are  mere  fabrications.  I  won't  say 
to  you :  "  Be  of  good  courage,"  because  men  of  ideas 
are  not  put  down  by  the  accidents  of  a  day  or  a  year. 


December  15,  1862. 

MY  DEAR  MOTLEY,  — 

As  I  am  in  the  vein  of  saying  things  that  ought  to 
please  you,  let  me  say  that  my  heart  always  swells 
with  pride,  and  a  glitter  comes  over  my  eyes,  when  I 
read  or  hear  your  denunciations  of  the  enemies  of 
liberty  at  home  and  abroad,  and  your  noble  pleas  for 
the  great  system  of  self-government  now  on  its  trial 
in  a  certain  sense  —  say  rather,  now  putting  our  peo 
ple  on  trial,  to  see  whether  they  are  worthy  of  it. 
There  were  many  reasons  why  you  should  have  lost 


TO   JOHN  LOTHROP  MOTLEY  169 

your  passion  for  a  republican  government.  The  old 
civilizations  welcome  you  as  an  ornament  to  their 
highest  circle.  At  home  you  of  course  meet  in  the 
upper  political  spheres  much  that  is  not  to  your  taste 
—  untaught  men,  uncouth  women,  plebeian  aspects. 
But  you  remain  an  idealist,  as  all  generous  natures 
do  and  must.  I  sometimes  think  it  is  the  only  abso 
lute  line  of  division  between  men,  —  that  which  sepa 
rates  the  men  who  hug  the  actual  from  those  who 
stretch  their  arms  to  embrace  the  possible.  I  reduce 
my  points  of  contact  with  the  first  class  to  a  mini 
mum.  When  I  meet  them,  I  let  them  talk,  for  the 
most  part,  for  there  is  no  profit  in  discussing  any  liv 
ing  question  with  men  who  have  no  sentiments,  and 
the  non-idealists  have  none.  We  don't  talk  music  to 
those  who  have  no  ear  ;  why  talk  of  the  great  human 
interests  to  men  who  have  lost  all  their  moral  sensi 
bilities,  or  who  never  had  any  ?  One  thinks  of  these 
same  abstractions  as  practical  matters  in  times  like 
these  and  places  like  this.  You  know  quite  as  well  as 
I  do  that  accursed  undercurrent  of  mercantile  materi 
alism,  which  is  trying  all  the  time  to  poison  the  foun 
tains  of  the  national  conscience.  You  know  better 
than  I  do  the  contrivances  of  that  detested  horde  of 
mercenary  partisans  who  would  in  a  moment  accept 
Jeff  Davis,  the  slave-trade,  and  a  Southern  garrison 
in  Boston,  to  get  back  their  post-offices  and  their 
custom-houses,  where  the  bread  they  have  so  long 
eaten  was  covered  with  slime,  like  that  of  their  brother 
serpents,  before  it  was  swallowed.  The  mean  sympa 
thizers  with  the  traitors  are  about  in  the  streets  under 
many  aspects.  You  can  generally  tell  the  more 
doubtful  ones  by  the  circumstance  that  they  have  a 
great  budget  of  complaints  against  the  government, 


170  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

that  their  memory  is  exceedingly  retentive  of  every 
reverse  and  misfortune,  and  that  they  have  the  small 
end  of  their  opera-glasses  towards  everything  that 
looks  encouraging.  I  do  not  think  strange  of  this  in 
old  men ;  they  wear  their  old  opinions  like  their  old 
clothes,  until  they  are  threadbare,  and  we  need  them 
as  standards  of  past  thought  which  we  may  reckon  our 
progress  by,  as  the  ship  wants  her  stationary  log  to 
tell  her  headway.  But  to  meet  young  men  who  have 
breathed  this  American  air  without  taking  the  conta 
gious  fever  of  liberty,  whose  hands  lie  as  cold  and 
flabby  in  yours  as  the  fins  of  a  fish,  on  the  morning  of 
a  victory  —  this  is  the  hardest  thing  to  bear.  Oh,  if 
the  bullets  would  only  go  to  the  hearts  that  have  no 
warm  human  blood  in  them !  But  the  most  generous 
of  our  youth  are  the  price  that  we  must  pay  for  the 
new  heaven  and  the  new  earth  which  are  to  be  born  of 
this  fiery  upheaval.  I  think  one  of  the  most  trying 
things  of  a  struggle  like  this  is  the  painful  revelation 
of  the  meanness  which  lies  about  us  unsuspected. 
Perhaps  I  am  harder  than  you  would  be  in  my  judg 
ment,  but  it  does  seem  to  me  that  the  essential  ele 
ments  of  the  armed  debate  now  going  on  are  so  evi 
dent,  that  it  is  a  shame  for  any  man,  woman,  or  child 
in  the  land  of  school-houses  and  colleges  not  to  know 
which  is  the  civilized  side  —  though  the  youth  at 
Cambridge,  in  England,  may  settle  it  in  their  debat 
ing  society  that  God  and  all  his  holy  angels  are  with 
the  slave-breeders. 

Thomas  Starr  King,  who  has  been  the  apostle  of 
liberal  religion  and  political  freedom  in  California, 
wrote  me  two  or  three  weeks  ago  that  he  was  to  de 
liver  some  lectures  on  American  Poets,  among  whom 
he  was  good  enough  to  include  me.  He  wanted  some 


TO   JOHN  LOTHROP  MOTLEY  171 

verses  to  finish  off  the  lecture  he  had  devoted  to  me, 
and  I  wrote  him  a  dozen,  of  which  one  or  two  may 
prove  readable  to  you.  They  are  not  to  be  printed  as 
yet,  but  by  and  by  perhaps  will  come  out  in  The 
Atlantic  (which  by  the  way  is  thriving,  I  understand, 
in  these  times).  .  .  . 

[Written  in  margin  of  the  letter.]  The  title  of 
this  Poem  is  "  Choose  you  this  Day  whom  you  will 
serve."  How  absurd !  I  have  written  the  whole  piece 
out  in  full.  I  do  solemnly  aver  that  when  I  began 
this  letter  I  had  no  thought  of  the  above  poem ;  I  do 
conscientiously  assert  that  when  I  began  the  poem  on 
the  preceding  page  I  had  no  intention  of  copying 
more  than  three  or  four  of  its  verses.  So  help  me 
Phrebus ! 

Horns  to  bulls,  stings  to  bees  —  to  poets  verses,  as 
weapons  of  offence  and  defence.  However,  if  you 
should  write  me  a  letter  one  of  these  days,  you  may 
criticise  them  if  you  like,  as  they  may  not  be  printed 
for  months  yet.  I  think  Starr  King  will  speak  them 
so  as  to  put  meaning  into  them,  if  they  have  none  of 
their  own. 

I  have  said  nothing  about  the  military  situation. 
This  noon  I  was  saying  that  I  looked  for  news  from 
the  other  side  of  Richmond.  This  afternoon  it  comes. 
I  am  writing  Monday.  What  news  may  come  to 
morrow  is  quite  uncertain,  but  I  myself  cannot  help 
thinking  that  Burnside  will  be  very  glad  to  wait,  if 
he  can,  until  the  cannon  begin  to  roar  to  the  east  and 
the  south  of  Richmond.  I  will  leave  a  little  space  for 
anything  I  may  hear  before  I  mail  my  letter. 

Tuesday,  December  VltJi.  I  could  have  wished  that 
the  mail  and  my  letter  had  gone  yesterday.  We  get 
to-day  the  news  that  Burnside  has  withdrawn  all  his 


172  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

troops  over  to  this  side  of  the  Rappahannock,  and 
taken  up  his  pontoon  bridges.  He  failed  in  his  re 
peated  attempts  to  storm  the  rebel  works,  and  found 
it  such  a  desperate  undertaking  that  he  seems  to  have 
given  up  for  the  present.  There  is  no  question  that 
this  news  has  exercised  a  most  depressing  effect  on  all 
but  the  secession  sympathizers,  who,  grudging  every 
success  to  the  Cabinet  and  its  new  general,  are  se 
cretly  comforted,  as  I  guess  by  certain  signs,  that  the 
"  Onward  to  Richmond  "  has  again  met  with  a  check. 
It  looks  to  me  now  as  if  the  movement  were  a  precau 
tion  against  a  possible  necessity  rather  than  an  imme 
diate  necessity.  The  river  was  fast  rising  with  the 
rain  which  was  falling.  It  would  never  do  to  be  cut 
off  from  supplies  and  reinforcements  by  a  swollen 
stream,  and  so  Burnside  quietly,  and  as  it  seems  with 
out  loss,  without  the  enemy's  being  aware  of  what  he 
was  about,  last  night  sent  over  his  artillery,  and  then 
followed  it  by  all  his  infantry.  We  have  become  so 
used  to  disappointments  that  we  have  learned  to  bear 
them  with  a  good  deal  of  equanimity.  We  hope  this 
is  only  temporary,  but  it  has  dashed  our  spirits,  and 
begun  to  knock  stocks  about  a  little.  .  .  .  You  will 
think,  I  know,  of  my  first-born  in  the  midst  of  the 
scenes  his  regiment  has  been  going  through.  He  is 
suffering  from  dysentery,  I  am  afraid  pretty  sick,  but 
we  are  impatiently  waiting  to  hear  from  him.  A  note 
of  two  or  three  lines,  written  in  pencil  to  a  friend  in 
Philadelphia  on  the  10th,  was  the  first  news  we  had 
of  his  being  ill,  and  is  the  last  thing  we  have  heard 
from  him  to  the  present  moment.  He  cannot  have 
been  in  the  fights,  and  therefore  must  have  been  really 
"  down,"  as  he  says  in  his  note.  The  experience  has 
no  doubt  brought  on  with  aggravated  symptoms  the 


TO  JOHN  LOTHROP  MOTLEY        173 

trouble  from  which  he  suffered  so  severely  on  the 
Chickahominy,  but  which  did  not  keep  him  from  being 
on  duty  until  the  last  of  the  battles  —  Malvern  Hill  — 
had  been  fought. 

Let  us  keep  up  our  courage  for  our  country  and 
ourselves.  It  is  harder  for  you,  I  have  no  doubt, 
than  for  me,  at  home  and  getting  the  news  two  or 
three  times  daily.  Many  things  that  sound  ill  do  not 
worry  me  long,  for  I  am  a  man  of  large  faith,  and 
though  the  Devil  is  a  personage  of  remarkable  talents, 
I  think  the  presiding  wisdom  is  sure  to  be  too  much 
for  him  in  the  end.  We  are  nervous  just  now,  and 
easily  put  down,  but  if  we  are  to  have  a  second  na 
tional  birth,  it  must  be  purchased  by  throes  and  ago 
nies,  harder,  perhaps,  than  we  have  yet  endured.  I 
think  of  you  all  very  often ;  do  remember  me  and  my 
wife  (who  is  giving  all  her  time  to  good  deeds)  most 
kindly  to  your  wife  and  daughter. 

Yours  always  in  faith  and  hope. 


BOSTON,  October  10,  1865.1 

MY  DEAR  MOTLEY,  —  When  Miss  Lily  left  us  last 
March,  we  hardly  thought  she  would  be  so  very  soon 
back  in  America  as  we  hear  she  is  to  be.  I  cannot  let 
the  day  of  her  marriage  go  over  without  a  line  to  her 
father  and  mother  as  a  substitute  for  the  epithala- 
mium  with  which  a  century  ago  I  should  (if  all 
parties  had  been  extant)  have  illuminated  the  Gentle 
man's  Magazine.  I  hear  from  one  of  my  Providence 
friends  the  best  accounts  of  Mr.  Ives.  I  hope  that 
the  alliance  will  prove  very  happy  to  her,  to  you,  to 

1  This  letter  has  already  been  printed  in  the  Motley  Corre 
spondence. 


174  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

your  wife,  and  all  your  connections.  It  is  having  a 
son,  a  brother,  born  full  grown,  to  receive  a  daughter's 
husband  as  a  member  of  one's  family.  With  all  the 
felicitations  which  rise  to  my  lips,  for  I  feel  now  as  if 
I  were  talking  with  you  face  to  face,  I  cannot  help 
remembering  how  much  there  must  be  of  tender  re 
gret  mingling  with  the  blessings  that  follow  the  dear 
child  over  the  threshold  of  the  home  she  had  bright 
ened  with  her  presence.  Even  the  orange  flowers 
must  cast  their  shadow. 

Yet  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  the  new  attractions 
which  our  country  will  have  for  you  will  restore  you 
and  your  family  to  those  who  grudge  your  possession 
to  an  alien  capital ;  and  that,  having  stood  picket 
manfully  at  one  of  our  European  outposts  through  the 
four  years'  campaign,  you  may  wish  to  be  relieved, 
now  that  the  great  danger  seems  over.  So  we  shall 
all  hope,  for  our  sakes.  What  a  fine  thing  it  would 
be  to  see  you  back  at  the  Saturday  Club  again! 
Longfellow  has  begun  to  come  again.  He  was  at  his 
old  place,  the  end  of  the  table,  at  our  last  meeting* 
We  have  had  a  good  many  of  the  notabilities  here 
within  the  last  three  or  four  months  ;  and  I  have  been 
fortunate  enough  to  have  some  pleasant  talks  with 
most  of  them.  Sir  Frederick  Bruce,  the  new  Minister, 
pleased  us  all.  You  may  know  him,  very  probably. 
White-haired,  white-whiskered,  red-cheeked,  round- 
cheeked,  with  rich  dark  eyes,  hearty,  convivial,  not 
afraid  to  use  the  strengthening  monosyllable,  for  which 
Englishmen  are  famous,  pretty  freely,  outspoken  for 
our  side  as  if  he  were  one  of  us,  he  produced,  on  me 
at  least,  a  very  different  effect  from  that  of  lively  Lord 
Napier  or  plain  and  quiet  Lord  Lyons. 

I  had  a  good  deal  of  talk  with  Grant,  whom  I  met 


TO   JOHN   LOTHKOP  MOTLEY  175 

twice.  He  is  one  of  the  simplest,  stillest  men  I  ever 
saw.  He  seems  torpid  at  first,  and  requires  a  little 
management  to  get  much  talk  out  of  him.  Of  all  the 
considerable  personages  I  have  seen,  he  appears  to  me 
to  be  the  least  capable  of  an  emotion  of  vanity.  He 
can  be  drawn  out,  and  will  tell  his  habits  and  feelings. 
I  have  been  very  shy  of  repeating  all  he  said  to  me, 
for  every  word  of  his  is  snapped  up  with  great  eager 
ness,  and  the  most  trivial  of  his  sayings,  if  mentioned 
in  the  hearing  of  a  gossip,  would  run  all  through  the 
press  of  the  country.  His  entire  sincerity  and  homely 
truthfulness  of  manner  and  speech  struck  me  greatly. 
He  was  not  conscious,  he  said,  of  ever  having  acted 
from  any  personal  motive  during  his  public  service. 
We  (of  the  West),  he  said,  were  terribly  in  earnest. 
The  greatest  crisis  was  the  battle  of  Shiloh ;  that  he 
would  not  lose ;  he  would  have  fought  as  long  as  any 
men  were  left  to  fight  with.  If  that  had  been  lost  the 
war  would  have  dragged  on  for  years  longer.  The 
North  would  have  lost  its  prestige.  Did  he  enjoy 
the  being  followed  as  he  was  by  the  multitude  ?  "  It 
was  very  painful."  This  answer  is  singularly  charac 
teristic  of  the  man.  They  call  on  him  for  speeches, 
which  he  cannot  and  will  not  try  to  make. 

One  trait,  half  physiological,  half  moral,  interested 
me.  He  said  he  was  a  good  sleeper ;  commonly  slept 
eight  hours.  He  could  go  to  sleep  under  almost  any 
circumstances  ;  could  set  a  battle  going,  go  to  sleep  as 
if  nothing  were  happening,  and  wake  up  by  and  by, 
when  the  action  had  got  along  somewhat.  Grant  has 
the  look  of  a  plain  business  man,  which  he  is.  I  doubt 
if  we  have  had  any  ideal  so  completely  realized  as 
that  of  the  republican  soldier  in  him.  I  cannot  get 
over  the  impression  he  made  on  me.  I  have  got  some- 


176  OLIVEK  WENDELL  HOLMES 

thing  like  it  from  women  sometimes,  hardly  ever 
from  men,  —  that  of  entire  loss  of  selfhood  in  a  great 
aim  which  made  all  the  common  influences  which 
stir  up  other  people  as  nothing  to  him.  I  don't  think 
you  have  met  Stanton.  I  found  him  a  very  mild, 
pleasant  person  to  talk  with,  though  he  is  an  ogre 
to  rebels  and  their  Northern  friends.  Short,  with 
a  square  head,  broad  not  high,  full  black  beard  turn 
ing  gray;  a  dark,  strong-looking  man;  he  talks  in 
a  very  gentle  tone,  protruding  his  upper  lip  in  rather 
an  odd  way.  Nothing  could  be  more  amiable  than 
the  whole  man.  It  was  pleasant  chat,  mainly,  we  had 
together.  One  thing  he  said  which  I  could  not  forget. 
Speaking  of  the  campaign  of  the  Wilderness :  "  It 
was  the  bloodiest  swath  ever  made  on  this  globe." 
Perhaps  a  little  hasarde,  this  statement,  but  coming 
from  the  Secretary  of  War  it  has  its  significance. 

Old  Farragut,  whom  I  foregathered  with  several 
times,  is  the  lustiest  gaillard  of  sixty-something,  one 
will  meet  with  in  the  course  of  a  season.  It  was  odd 
to  contrast  him  and  Major  Anderson.  I  was  with 
them  both  on  one  occasion.  The  Major  —  General,  I 
should  say  —  is  a  conscientious,  somewhat  languid, 
rather  bloodless-looking  gentleman,  who  did  his  duty 
well,  but  was  overtasked  in  doing  it.  Nothing  would 
have  supported  him  but,  etc.,  etc. ;  but  the  old  Ad 
mirable  —  bona  fide  accident  —  let  it  stand  ;  is  full  of 
hot  red  blood,  jolly,  juicy,  abundant,  equal  to  any 
thing,  and  an  extra  dividend  of  life  left  ready  for 
payment  after  the  largest  expenditure.  I  don't  know 
but  he  is  as  much  the  ideal  seaman  as  Grant  the  ideal 
general ;  but  the  type  is  not  so  rare.  He  talks  with 
everybody,  merry,  twinkling-eyed,  up  to  everything, 
fond  of  telling  stories,  tells  them  weD ;  the  gayest, 


TO   JOHN  LOTHROP  MOTLEY  177 

heartiest,  shrewdest  old  boy  you  ever  saw  in  your  life. 
The  young  lady  (so  to  speak),  whom  you  would  natu 
rally  address  as  his  daughter,  is  Mrs.  Farragut,  the 
pretty  wife  of  the  old  heart-of-oak  Admiral. 

Mr.  Burlingame  has  come  home  from  China  on  a 
visit.  It  is  strange  what  stories  they  all  bring  back 
from  the  Celestials.  Richard  Dana,  Burlingame,  Sir 
F.  Bruce,  all  seemed  filled  with  a  great  admiration 
of  the  pigtails.  "  There  are  twenty  thousand  Ralph 
Waldo  Emersons  in  China,"  said  Mr.  B.  to  me.  "  We 
have  everything  to  learn  from  them  in  the  matter  of 
courtesy.  They  are  an  honester  people  than  Euro 
peans.  Bayard  Taylor's  stories  about  their  vices  do 
them  great  injustice.  They  are  from  hasty  impres 
sions  got  in  seaport  towns."  This  is  the  kind  of  way 
they  talk. 

Mr.  Howells,  from  Venice,  was  here  not  long  ago ; 
tells  me  he  has  seen  you,  who  are  his  chef,  I  sup 
pose,  in  some  sense.  This  is  a  young  man  of  no  small 
talent.  In  fact,  his  letters  from  Venice  are  as  good 
travellers'  letters  as  I  remember  since  "  Eothen." 

My  son,  Oliver  Wendell  H.,  Jr.,  now  commonly 
styled  Lieutenant-Colonel,  thinks  of  visiting  Europe 
in  the  course  of  a  few  months,  and  wants  me  to  ask 
you  for  a  line  of  introduction  to  John  Stuart  Mill  and 
to  Hughes.  I  give  his  message  or  request  without 
urging  it.  He  is  a  presentable  youth,  with  fair  ante 
cedents,  and  is  more  familiar  with  Mill's  writings  than 
most  fellows  of  his  years.  If  it  like  your  Excellency 
to  send  me  two  brief  notes  for  him,  it  would  please  us 
both,  but  not  if  it  is  a  trouble  to  you. 

And  now,  as  I  am  closing  my  gossipy  letter,  full 
of  little  matters  which  I  hoped  might  interest  you  for 
a  moment,  let  me  end  as  I  began,  with  the  thoughts 


VOL.  II. 


178  OLIVEK   WENDELL   HOLMES 

of  you  and  yours,  which  this  day  brings  up  so  freshly 
before  me.  Peace  and  prosperity  and  happiness  to 
both  households,  the  new  and  the  old  !  What  can  I 
say  better  than  to  repeat  that  old  phrase,  —  the  kindly 
Roman's  prayer  as  a  poor  Christian  would  shape  it  on 
this  "  auspicious  morning,"  quod  bonum,  faustum, 
felix, fortunatumque  sit!  Love  to  all. 


BOSTON,  July  IS, 1869. 

MY  DEAR  MOTLEY,  —  It  is  two  months  to-day  since 
I  dined  with  you  at  No.  2  Park  Street.  You  ought 
to  be  at  home  by  this  time  in  London,  and  ready  for 
my  little  budget  of  Boston  small-talk,  which  ought  to 
be  welcome  to  you  as  a  change  from  the  great  affairs 
with  which  you  are  dealing,  or  of  which  you  must 
be  thinking.  I  am  only  anxious  that  they  should  be 
small  enough  matters  that  I  write  to  you  about,  for 
I  have  talked  a  good  deal  with  Sumner  of  late,  and 
know  what  laborious  correspondence  you  have  to  keep 
up  with  him.  I  have  had  some  talk  with  Judge 
Hoar,  too,  and  I  know  you  must  be  occupied  enough 
for  the  first  weeks  or  months  with  your  new  duties  to 
find  little  time  or  thought  for  the  trifles  with  which 
I  fill  up  my  slight  pages. 

I  believe  my  staple  is  commonly  myself,  a  person 
in  whom  I  am  ashamed  to  take  so  much  interest,  but 
he  is  so  fond  of  you,  and  misses  you  so  much,  that  you 
can  excuse  almost  anything. 

I  had  been  writing  continuously  for  a  good  while 
when  you  went  away,  in  a  somewhat  new  direction, 
but  whether  anything  will  come  of  it  I  am  not  yet 
quite  sure.  In  the  mean  time  I  have  been  disgrace 
fully  good-natured  and  written  several  small  occa- 


TO   JOHN  LOTHROP  MOTLEY  179 

sional  copies  of  verses,  one  or  two  of  which  I  shall 
enclose,  to  remind  you  of  my  fatal  facility  at  that  kind 
of  good-natured  literature. 

I  think,  on  the  whole,  the  most  interesting  thing  I 
have  to  tell  you  relates  to  a  piece  of  literary  and  per 
sonal  history,  which  I  trust  to  your  discretion  a  little 
prematurely.  Singularly  enough,  I  suspect  you  to  be 
one  of  a  limited  number  of  persons  to  whom  the  main 
facts  involved  have  long  been  familiar. 

At  the  request  of  Mrs.  Stowe,  I  looked  over  the 
proofs  of  an  article,  which  is  to  come  out  in  the  Sep 
tember  number  of  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  and  will 
consequently  startle  the  world  about  the  middle,  of 
August,  —  before  which  time  I  consider  it  as  confiden 
tially  in  my  knowledge,  and  imparted  to  you  (for 
whom  it  may  possibly  have  less  interest  than  I  sup 
pose)  in  the  exercise  of  my  own  discretion. 

It  relates  to  the  true  history  of  Lord  Byron's  rela 
tions  with  Lady  Byron,  as  disclosed  to  Mrs.  Stowe  by 
Lady  B.  The  essential  point  is  that  incestuous  rela 
tion  which  is  represented  as  the  true  source  of  the 
difficulty,  and  though  the  name  of  the  relative  is  not 
mentioned,  it  is  plain  enough  who  is  referred  to. 

I  was  not  consulted  about  the  matter  of  publishing 
Lady  Byron's  revelations.  Mrs.  Stowe  assured  me 
that  she  had  made  up  her  mind  about  that.  All  she 
asked  was  my  literary  counsel  and  supervision,  which 
I  very  willingly  gave  her. 

This  article  must  create  a  great  sensation  in  many 
quarters,  —  you  know  better  than  I,  a  great  deal, 
how  far  it  will  be  a  surprise  in  the  circles  of  English 
society.  So,  look  out,  about  the  middle  of  August, 
for  the  September  number  of  The  Atlantic  Monthly. 

We  have  had  the  Coliseum  fever,  and  happily  recov- 


180  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

ered.  It  was  a  grand  affair,  I  assure  you.  I  doubt 
if  forty  thousand  people  were  ever  seen  before  under 
one  unbroken  continuity  of  roof,  in  a  single  honest 
parallelogram.  I  will  give  you  in  little  its  dimensions, 
as  compared  with  the  Coliseum  at  Home,  —  which 


last    building   had 


such,    but   had   no 


ni£    iictu    x  —  -\    -Lvwriu,,  very  pruua- 

bly,  for   emperors,  (  )  ambassadors,      and 

Cln  A  PI  Vvn4-        |-»orl         -n  r\      ^-         -          •*         vx-wtst-m-k-vi      -w^r-v-P  T^T-»  s\ 


velaria,  very  proba- 


proper  roof.       The 


audience  was  truly  a  wonderful  sight,  and  the  vast 
orchestra  and  chorus,  though  not  deafening,  as  many 
expected,  was  almost  oceanic  in  the  volume  of  its 
surges  and  billows.  I  wrote  a  hymn  for  it,  which 
Amory  told  me,  two  days  ago,  I  had  not  been  praised 
enough  for.  How  I  loved  him ! 

And  that  reminds  me  to  tell  you  that  there  was  a 
very  pleasant  excursion,  two  days  ago,  where  I  met 
him,  and  he  made  me  happy,  as  I  tell  you.  Mr. 
George  Peabody  —  the  Dives  who  is  going  to  Abra 
ham's  bosom,  and  I  fear  before  a  great  while  —  asked 
a  company  of  twenty  or  thereabouts  to  come  to  Dan- 
vers,  —  or  rather  "  Peabody,"  as  they  call  it  now,  — 
to  look  at  the  buildings  he  has  given,  the  library,  etc., 
and  have  a  good  time  and  a  collation.  There  was 
Mr.  Adams  and  Mr.  Sumner  —  governors,  judges,  — 
Mayor  Shurtleff,  Bigelow,  Warren,  Clifford,  William 
Gray,  and  so  on,  and  among  the  rest  William  Amory 
and  myself.  We  had  a  very  pleasant  day  of  it.  I 
said  to  myself :  It  is  just  possible,  not  likely,  but  it 
may  possibly  happen,  that  they  will  call  on  you  for 
something.  So  I  wrote  them  a  toast,  or  sentiment. 
It  was  nothing,  but  it  touched  them  off  like  a  lucifer 
match.  I  wish  we  had  had  you  there.  We  would 
have  squeezed  you,  as  we  did  Sumner,  and  got  a 
speech  out  of  you,  which  could  hardly  help  being  un- 


TO   JOHN  LOTHROP  MOTLEY  181 

premeditated.  I  believe  I  was  the  only  person  there 
wary  enough  to  foresee  the  possibility  of  a  sudden 
call,  —  I  know  that  Dr.  Lothrop  had  to  ask  an  extem 
pore  blessing,  —  which  he  did  so  well  that  we  thought 
he  must  have  been  rehearsing  it  for  a  week.  You 
shall  have  my  "  sentiment,"  taking  it  for  granted  that 
you  understand  the  difference  between  fireworks  on 
the  evening  of  July  Fourth  and  the  look  of  the  frames 
the  next  morning :  — 

Bankrupt !     Our  pockets  inside  out ! 

Empty  of  words  to  speak  his  praises  ! 
Worcester  and  Webster  up  the  spout ! 

Dead-broke  of  laudatory  phrases  ! 
Yet  why  with  flowery  speeches  tease, 

With  vain  superlatives  distress  him  ? 
Has  language  better  words  than  these  — 

"  The  Friend  of  all  his  race  —  God  bless  him  ! " 

A  simple  prayer,  but  words  more  sweet 

By  human  lips  were  never  uttered 
Since  Adam  left  the  country  seat 

Where  angel  wings  around  him  fluttered  ! 
The  old  look  on  with  tear-dimmed  eyes, 

The  children  cluster  to  caress  him, 
And  every  voice  unbidden  cries  — 

«  The  Friend  of  all  his  race  —  God  bless  him  !  " 

More  little  matters.  We  have  got  a  grand  new 
equestrian  statue  of  George  Washington,  "first  in 
war,"  etc.,  in  the  Public  Garden.  It  reminds  me  of 
Ranch's  statue  of  Frederic  at  Berlin,  which  I  never 
saw,  except  in  a  glass  stereograph  —  almost  as  good, 
however,  as  the  statue  itself.  It  faces  down  Common 
wealth  Avenue,  as  if  he  were  riding  out  of  Boston.  I 
wonder  we  have  not  had  an  epigram,  in  some  New 
York  paper,  to  the  effect  that  he  is  turning  his  horse's 
tail  to  us.  They  can  turn  it  about,  however,  as  they 


182  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

have  done  with  Everett's.  I  suppose  you  will  be  in 
bronze  one  of  these  days,  —  but  I  hope  they  will  make 
you  face  Boston.  This  new  and  first  equestrian  statue 
we  have  seen  here  is  generally  admired.  I  think  it  is 
admirable  in  its  effect,  and  I  have  not  heard  any  but 
favorable  criticisms  so  far.  So  you  see,  what  with  her 
Coliseum,  and  its  thousand  instruments  and  ten  thou 
sand  singers,  and  its  "  man  on  horseback "  (what  a 
wonderfully  picturesque  generalization  that  was  of 
Caleb  Cushing's !  ),  and  its  two  members  of  the  Cabi 
net  and  Minister  to  England,  our  little  town  of  Boston 
feels  as  good  as  any  place  of  its  size,  to  say  nothing  of 
bigger  ones. 

We  saw  in  the  paper,  the  other  day,  that  you,  with 
your  wife  and  daughters,  were  going  into  society 
"  with  a  rush,"  as  it  was  elegantly  put.  I  hope  you 
have  strength  and  patience  for  the  labor  that  must  be 
connected  with  all  this  social  expenditure  of  vitality. 
You  remember  I  got  some  quinine  pills  for  you,  as  you 
went  off,  —  they  did  not  kill  you,  that  is  certain,  — 
whether  they  did  you  any  good,  I  am  afraid  you  have 
forgotten  by  this  time. 

I  am  going  to  enclose  you  my  Halleck  poem,  written 
at  the  request  of  the  New  York  Committee,  and  one 
or  two  other  trifles.  They  will  have  a  home  flavor,  I 
know,  and  you  will  get  a  whiff  of  Boston  and  Cam 
bridge  associations  out  of  them,  if  nothing  else, — 
just  as  Mr.  Howells  told  me,  coming  in  in  the  cars, 
yesterday,  that  the  smell  of  the  Back  Bay  salt  water 
brought  back  Venice  to  him.  .  .  . 


TO   JOHN  LOTHROP  MOTLEY  183 

BOSTON,  September  26,  1869. 

MY  DEAR  MOTLEY,  —  You  need  never  excuse  your 
self  for  not  sending  letter  for  letter  —  I  do  not  expect 
it  —  I  was  going  to  say  I  do  not  wish  it,  for  I  feel 
what  a  load  any  letter  must  be  to  one  overburdened 
already  with  such  a  mass  of  correspondence.  Even 
without  this  special  reason  I  should  never  be  very 
particular.  I  can  say  with  Lady  Montagu:  "I  am 
not  so  wrong-headed  as  to  quarrel  with  my  friends  the 
minute  they  don't  write ;  I  'd  as  soon  quarrel  at  the 
sun  the  minute  he  did  not  shine,  which  he  is  hindered 
from  by  accidental  causes,  and  is  in  reality  all  that 
time  performing  the  same  courses  and  doing  the  same 
good  offices  as  ever." 

The  first  thing  I  naturally  recur  to  is  the  Byron 
article.  In  your  letter  of  August  4th  you  say  "  there 
will  be  a  row  "  about  it.  Has  n't  there  been  !  We 
have  had  three  storms  this  autumn :  1.  The  great 
gale  of  September  8th,  which  I  recognized  while  it 
was  blowing  as  the  greatest  for  fifty-four  years,  —  for 
you  remember  that  I  remember  the  September  gale. 
2d.  The  Byron  whirlwind,  which  began  here  and 
travelled  swiftly  across  the  Atlantic ;  and  3d,  the  gold- 
storm,  as  I  christened  the  terrible  financial  conflict 
of  the  last  week.  About  the  Byron  article  I  confess 
that,  great  as  I  expected  the  excitement  to  be,  it  far 
exceeded  anything  I  had  anticipated.  The  prevailing 
feeling  was  that  of  disbelief  of  the  facts.  The  general 
opinion  was  strongly  adverse  to  the  action  of  Mrs. 
Stowe.  My  impression  is  that  the  belief  in  the  essen 
tial  fact  is  growing  stronger  since  the  unsatisfactory 
statements  of  the  parties  most  interested.  I  see  that 
there  is  a  more  decided  division  of  opinion  on  the  main 
question  in  England  than  here  —  or  than  there  was 


184  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

here  at  first,  at  any  rate.  In  the  mean  time  the  poor 
woman,  who,  of  course,  meant  to  do  what  she  thought 
an  act  of  supreme  justice,  has  been  abused  as  a  hyena, 
a  ghoul,  and  by  every  name  and  in  every  form,  by  the 
baser  sort  of  papers.  The  tone  of  the  leading  ones 
has  been  generally  severe,  but  not  brutal.  I  might 
have  felt  very  badly  about  it,  if  I  had  had  any  respon 
sibility  in  counselling  Mrs.  S.  to  publish,  but  she  had 
made  up  her  mind  finally,  and  had  her  article  in  type, 
before  I  heard  or  knew  anything  of  it. 

This  last  week  we  had  a  Humboldt  celebration,  or 
rather  two,  in  Boston.  One  in  which  Agassiz  was  the 
orator,  the  other  in  which  a  German  —  Heinzel  by 
name  —  was  the  speaker.  Agassiz  did  himself  credit 
by  a  succinct  account  of  Humboldt's  life  and  labors, 
and  interesting  anecdotes  of  his  personal  relations 
with  him.  He  was  in  great  trouble  all  the  time.  .  .  . 
Curious  hint  for  public  speakers  who  use  glasses.  I 
sat  next  Charles  Sumner.  "  Agassiz  has  made  a  mis 
take,"  he  said,  "  he  has  eye-glasses  —  he  ought  to  have 
spectacles.  In  three  or  four  minutes  his  skin  will  get 
moist  and  they  will  slip  and  plague  him."  They  did 
not  in  "  three  or  four  minutes,"  but  in  the  last  part 
of  his  address  they  gave  him  a  good  deal  of  trouble, 
keeping  one  hand  busy  all  the  time  to  replace  them  as 
they  slid  down  his  nose.  Kemember  this  if  you  have 
occasion  to  speak  an  hour  or  two  before  an  audience 
in  a  warm  room.  Of  course  I  wrote  a  poem,  which 
I  had  the  wonderful  good  sense  to  positively  refuse 
delivering  in  Music  Hall  after  the  long  Address  of 
Agassiz,  but  read  at  the  soiree  afterwards.  I  thought 
well  of  it,  as  I  am  apt  to,  and  others  liked  it.  Ap 
plaud  my  abstinence  in  not  sending  it  to  you  —  it  will 


TO  JOHN  LOTHROP  MOTLEY         185 

be  in  print  one  of  these  days,  perhaps  in  The  Atlantic. 
.  .  .  That  same  day  Heinzel,  as  I  said,  delivered  an 
address,  to  the  Germans  chiefly,  in  Boston,  in  which 
he  claimed  Humboldt  as  an  Atheist,  in  opposition  to 
Agassiz,  who  cited  passages  in  which  Humboldt  re 
ferred  to  the  Deity. 

Longfellow  has  got  home,  not  looking  younger,  cer 
tainly,  but  luminous  with  gentle  graces  as  always. 
Walking  on  the  bridge  two  or  three  weeks  ago,  I  met 

a  barouche  with  Miss  G and  a  portly  mediaeval 

gentleman  at  her  side.  I  thought  it  was  a  ghost, 
almost,  when  the  barouche  stopped  and  out  jumped 
Tom  Appleton  in  the  flesh,  and  plenty  of  it,  as  afore 
time.  We  embraced  —  or  rather  he  embraced  me  and 
I  partially  spanned  his  goodly  circumference.  He  has 
been  twice  here  —  the  last  time  he  took  tea  and 
stayed  till  near  eleven,  pouring  out  all  the  time  such  a 
torrent  of  talk,  witty,  entertaining,  audacious,  ingen 
ious,  sometimes  extravagant,  but  fringed  always  with 
pleasing  fancies  as  deep  as  the  border  of  a  Queen's 
cashmere,  that  my  mind  came  but  of  it  as  my  body 
would  out  of  a  Turkish  bath  —  every  joint  snapped 
and  its  hard  epidermis  taken  clean  off  in  that  four 
hours'  immersion.  Tom  was  really  wonderful,  I  think. 
I  never  heard  such  a  fusillade  in  my  life.  You  may 
be  sure  your  name  came  up  between  us,  and  if  you 
had  been  just  outside  the  door  you  might  have  heard 
"  something  to  your  advantage,"  as  the  Times  adver 
tisements  have  it ;  for  your  oldest  friends  are  among 
the  warmest,  you  may  be  well  assured. 

So  you  see  I  have  told  you  of  small  local  and  per 
sonal  matters,  not  so  well  as  a  lively  woman  would 
have  done  it,  but  as  they  came  up  to  my  mind.  I 


186  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

read  somewhere  lately  a  letter  of  a  great  personage 
then  abroad  —  I  think  it  was  old  John  Adams  — 
in  which  he  begs  for  a  letter  full  of  trifling  home- 
matters.  He  gets  enough  that  strains  him  to  read, 
and  he  wants  undress  talk.  I  can  tell  you  nothing  of 
the  large  world  you  will  not  get  better  from  other 
correspondents,  but  I  can  talk  to  you  of  places  and 
persons  and  topics  of  limited  interest  which  will 
perhaps  give  you  five  minutes  of  Boston,  and  be 
as  refreshing  as  a  yawn  and  stretch  after  being  fixed 
an  hour  in  one  position.  Park  Street  looks  very 
dreary  since  you  and  your  wife  and  daughters  have 
left  it  —  I  can't  help  hoping  that  you  will  be  sated 
with  honors  and  labors  by  and  by.  I  have  not  said 
a  word  about  the  race,  which  was  on  the  whole  a 
pleasant  interlude,  notwithstanding  our  misfortune. 


BOSTON,  April  3,  1870. 

MY  DEAR  MOTLEY,  —  I  feel  as  if  I  must  have 
something  or  other  to  say  that  will  interest  you,  but 
what  it  is,  if  there  is  anything,  I  can  hardly  guess  as 
yet.  L'appetit  vient  en  mangeant,  I  have  no  doubt, 
and  if  I  can  only  tell  you  that  I  am  alive  and  have  not 
forgotten  you,  I  shall  perhaps  feel  better  for  saying  it. 
I  have  been  rather  miserable  this  winter  by  reason  of 
asthmatic  tendencies,  which,  without  preventing  me 
from  doing  my  work,  keep  me  more  or  less  uncomfort 
able,  and  tell  me  to  decline  my  invitations  for  a  while. 
I  have  been  well  enough,  however,  of  late,  and  went 

to  a  dinner-party  at  Mrs. 's  yesterday,  and  a  kind 

of  soiree  she  had  after  it.  This  good  lady  (who  is  a 
distant  relation  of  Mrs.  Leo  Hunter)  had  bagged  Mr. 
Fechter,  the  player,  who  has  been  turning  the  heads 


TO   JOHN   LOTHROP  MOTLEY  187 

of  the  Boston  women  and  girls  with  his  Hamlets  and 
Claude  Melnottes.  A  pleasant,  intelligent  man, — 
you  may  have  met  him  or  at  any  rate  seen  him,  — 
but  Boston  furores  are  funny.  The  place  is  just  of 
the  right  size  for  aesthetic  endemics,  and  they  spare 
neither  age  nor  sex  —  among  the  women,  that  is,  for 
we  have  man-women  and  woman- women  here,  you 
know.  It  reminds  me  of  the  time  we  had  when  Jef 
ferson  was  here,  but  Fechter  is  feted  off  the  stage  as 
much  as  he  is  applauded  on  it.  I  have  only  seen  him 
in  Hamlet,  in  which  he  interested  rather  than  over* 
whelmed  me.  But  his  talk  about  Rachel  and  the  rest 
with  whom  he  has  played  so  much  was  mighty  pleasant. 
Another  sensation  in  a  somewhat  different  sphere 
is  our  new  Harvard  College  President.  King  Log 
has  made  room  for  King  Stork.  Mr.  Eliot  makes  the 
Corporation  meet  twice  a  month  instead  of  once.  He 
comes  to  the  meeting  of  every  Faculty,  ours  among 
the  rest,  and  keeps  us  up  to  eleven  and  twelve  o'clock 
at  night  discussing  new  arrangements.  He  shows  an 
extraordinary  knowledge  of  all  that  relates  to  every 
department  of  the  University,  and  presides  with  an 
aplomb,  a  quiet,  imperturbable,  serious  good-humor, 
that  it  is  impossible  not  to  admire.  We  are,  some  of 
us,  disposed  to  think  that  he  is  a  little  too  much  in  a 
hurry  with  some  of  his  innovations,  and  take  care  to 
let  the  Corporation  know  it.  I  saw  three  of  them  the 
other  day  and  found  that  they  were  on  their  guard,  as 
they  all  quoted  that  valuable  precept,  festlna  lente, 
as  applicable  in  the  premises.  I  cannot  help  being 
amused  at  some  of  the  scenes  we  have  in  our  Medical 
Faculty,  —  this  cool,  grave  young  man  proposing  in 
the  calmest  way  to  turn  everything  topsy-turvy,  taking 
the  reins  into  his  hands  and  driving  as  if  he  were  the 


188  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

first  man  that  ever  sat  on  the  box.  I  say  amused, 
because  I  do  not  really  care  much  about  most  of  the 
changes  he  proposes,  and  I  look  on  a  little  as  I  would 
at  a  rather  serious  comedy. 

"How  is  it?  I  should  like  to  ask,"  said  one  of  our 
number  the  other  evening,  "  that  this  Faculty  has  gone 
on  for  eighty  years,  managing  its  own  affairs  and 
doing  it  well,  —  for  the  Medical  School  is  the  most 
flourishing  department  connected  with  the  college,  — 
how  is  it  that  we  have  been  going  on  so  well  in  the 
same  orderly  path  for  eighty  years,  and  now  within 
three  or  f OUT  months  it  is  proposed  to  change  all  our 
modes  of  carrying  on  the  school  —  it  seems  very  ex 
traordinary,  and  I  should  like  to  know  how  it  happens." 

"I  can  answer  Dr.  's  question  very  easily," 

said  the  bland,  grave  young  man :  "  there  is  a  new 
President." 

The  tranquil  assurance  of  this  answer  had  an  effect 
such  as  I  hardly  ever  knew  produced  by  the  most 
eloquent  sentences  I  ever  heard  uttered.  Eliot  has  a 
deep,  almost  melancholy  sounding  voice  —  with  a  little 
of  that  character  that  people's  voices  have  when  there 
is  somebody  lying  dead  in  the  house,  but  a  placid 
smile  on  his  face  that  looks  as  if  it  might  mean  a  deal 
of  determination,  perhaps  of  obstinacy.  I  have  great 
hopes  from  his  energy  and  devotion  to  his  business, 
which  he  studies  as  I  suppose  no  President  ever  did 
before ;  but  I  think  the  Corporation  and  Overseers 
will  have  to  hold  him  in  a  little,  or  he  will  want  to 
do  too  many  things  at  once. 

I  went  to  the  Club  last  Saturday,  and  met  some 
of  the  friends  you  always  like  to  hear  of.  I  sat  by 
the  side  of  Emerson,  who  always  charms  me  with  his 
delicious  voice,  his  fine  sense  and  wit,  and  the  delicate 


TO  JOHN  LOTHKOP  MOTLEY         189 

way  he  steps  about  among  the  words  of  his  vocabulary, 
—  if  you  have  seen  a  cat  picking  her  footsteps  in  wet 
weather,  you  have  seen  the  picture  of  Emerson's  ex 
quisite  intelligence,  feeling  for  its  phrase  or  epithet,  — 
sometimes  I  think  of  an  ant-eater  singling  out  his 
insects,  as  I  see  him  looking  about  and  at  last  seizing 
his  noun  or  adjective,  —  the  best,  the  only  one  which 
would  serve  the  need  of  his  thought. 

Longfellow  was  there,  —  not  in  good  spirits  I 
thought  by  his  looks.  On  talking  with  him  I  found 
it  was  so.  He  feels  the  tameness  and  want  of  inter 
est  of  the  life  he  is  leading  after  the  excitement  of 
his  European  experience,  and  makes  no  secret  of  it. 
I  think  the  work  of  translating  Dante  kept  him  easy, 
and  that  he  is  restless  now  for  want  of  a  task.  ...  I 
hope  he  will  find  some  pleasant  literary  labor  for  his 
later  years,  —  for  his  graceful  and  lovely  nature  can 
hardly  find  expression  in  any  form  without  giving 
pleasure  to  others,  and  for  him  to  be  idle  is,  I  fear, 
to  be  the  prey  of  sad  memories. 

Lowell  was  not  at  the  Club.  I  saw  him  at  the  Feb 
ruary  one  seeming  well  and  in  good  spirits. 

Agassiz,  you  know,  has  been  in  a  condition  to  cause 
very  grave  fears.  I  am  happy  to  say  that  he  is  much 
improved  of  late.  .  .  . 

I  have  left  no  room  to  talk  of  your  affairs,  to  sym* 
pathize  with  your  spoliation,  —  to  say  how  grand  we 
all  felt  when  we  read  of  your  famous  reception  of  the 
great  folks  the  other  day,  nor  to  tell  you  how  we  miss 
you  and  your  family  here  in  your  own  little  city, 
which  you  must  not  forget  because  it  looks  so  small 
in  the  distance.  You  like  a  letter  from  me  every  few 
months,  I  am  sure,  though  there  is  not  a  great  deal  in 
it.  You  know  you  need  not  answer. 


190  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

BOSTON,  December  22,  1871. 

MY  DEAR  MOTLEY,  —  It  is  several  months,  I  think, 
since  I  have  put  you  to  the  trouble  of  reading  one  of 
my  gossiping  letters,  telling  you  all  about  myself  and 
my  small  affairs  and  the  trivialities  which  I  can  think 
of  as  possibly  like  to  interest  you.  I  saw  your  brother 
Edward  yesterday,  and  he  told  me  that  he  had  just 
written  you  twelve  pages  of  news,  so  that  it  does  seem 
this  time  as  if  I  should  have  hard  work  to  find  any 
thing  to  tell  you  about  that  you  do  not  know  already. 
...  At  this  moment,  as  I  write,  a  flock  of  a  hundred 
or  more  wild  ducks  are  swimming  about  and  diving  in 
a  little  pool  in  the  midst  of  the  ice,  for  the  river  has 
just  frozen  over  again,  and  the  thermometer  was  at 
zero  yesterday.  I  think  you  would  call  my  library  a 
pleasant  room,  even  after  all  the  fine  residences  you 
have  seen.  I  do  not  think  the  two  famous  Claudes 
of  Longford  Castle,  with  the  best  picture  Turner  ever 
painted  between  them,  would  pay  me  for  my  three 
windows  which  look  out  over  the  estuary  of  Charles 
River.  But  you  know  what  a  faculty  I  have  of  being 
pleased  with  anything  that  is  mine.  You  will  indulge 
me,  I  know,  in  telling  you  about  matters  that  interest 
me,  especially  as  I  have  to  take  so  much  interest  in  my 
self  lately,  because  I  have  a  good  deal  to  do  and  must 
put  my  spirit  into  it,  and  that  makes  one  more  or  less 
an  egotist.  Firstly,  then,  our  new  President,  Eliot, 
has  turned  the  whole  University  over  like  a  flapjack. 
There  never  was  such  a  bouleversement  as  that  in  our 
Medical  Faculty.  The  Corporation  has  taken  the 
whole  management  of  it  out  of  our  hands  and  changed 
everything.  We  are  paid  salaries,  which  I  rather 
like,  though  I  doubt  if  we  gain  in  pocket  by  it. 
We  have,  partly  in  consequence  of  outside  pressure, 


TO   JOHN  LOTHROP  MOTLEY  191 

remodelled  our  whole  course  of  instruction.  Conse 
quently  we  have  a  smaller  class,  but  better  students, 
each  of  whom  pays  more  than  under  the  old  plan  of 
management.  It  is  so  curious  to  see  a  young  man  like 
Eliot,  with  an  organizing  brain,  a  firm  will,  a  grave, 
calm,  dignified  presence,  taking  the  ribbons  of  our 
classical  coach  and  six,  feeling  the  horses'  mouths, 
putting  a  check  on  this  one's  capers  and  touching  that 
one  with  the  lash,  —  turning  up  everywhere,  in  every 
Faculty  (I  belong  to  three),  on  every  public  occasion, 
at  every  dinner  orne,  and  taking  it  all  as  naturally  as 
if  he  had  been  born  President.  I  don't  know  whether 
I  said  all  this  last  time  and  the  time  before  that, 
but  if  I  did  I  trust  you  have  forgotten  it.  In  the 
mean  time  Yale  has  chosen  a  Connecticut  country 
minister,  cet.  60,  as  her  President,  and  the  experi 
ment  of  liberal  culture  with  youth  at  the  helm  versus 
orthodox  repression  with  a  graybeard  Palinurus  is 
going  on  in  a  way  that  it  is  impossible  to  look  at 
without  interest  in  seeing  how  the  experiment  will 
turn  out. 

I  suppose  Edward  has  told  you  all  about  the  Grand 
Duke's  visit  and  the  stir  it  made  in  our  little  city. 
You  are  so  used  to  great  folks  that  a  Grand  Duke  is 
not  more  to  you  than  a  Giant  or  a  Dwarf  is  to  Bar- 
num ;  but  we  had  not  had  a  sensation  for  some  time, 
and  this  splendid  young  man  —  for  he  is  a  superb 
specimen  —  produced  a  great  effect.  I  suppose  you 
get  the  Boston  papers  sometimes  and  read  what  your 
fellow-citizens  are  doing.  The  dinner  the  gentlemen 
[gave]  was  a  handsome  one  —  thirty-five,  dollars  a 
plate  ought  to  pay  for  what  the  Californians  call  a 
"  square  meal."  Speeches  and  a  poem,  of  course  — 
blush  for  me  !  —  the  whole  affair  was  a  success,  with 


192  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

one  or  two  fiascos.     H made  a  sad  mess  of  it  5 

nobody  understands  how  he  can  contrive,  with  so 
much  taste  and  experience  as  he  has,  to  make  such  a 
piece  of  work  as  he  did  the  other  night,  and  as  he  did 

at  the  Burns  Centenary  Dinner.    D was  as  heavy 

as  a  Dutch  galleon,  —  his  grandpa  was  Ambassador 
to  Russia,  and  he  was  thinking  too  much  about  that, 

perhaps.     D is  able,  but  somehow  he  does  not 

clear  the  top  bar.  Winthrop  was  admirable ;  Lowell 
was  very  happy.  Phillips  Brooks  was  much  ap 
plauded  ;  and  the  Russian  Minister  that  was  —  Cata- 
cazy  —  made  a  speech  which,  under  the  circumstances, 
was  adroit  and  felicitous  to  a  wonderful  degree. 
Winthrop  went  over  its  points  two  or  three  evenings 
ago  at  a  dinner  at  our  friend  William  Amory's,  and 
considered  it,  for  a  man  placed  as  he  was,  almost  mar 
vellous  for  what  it  said  and  for  what  it  avoided.  Well, 
e/i  revanche  for  our  dinner,  the  Grand  Duke  gave  one 
at  the  Revere  House  to  a  few  guests,  viz.,  the  Gov 
ernor,  President  Eliot,  Longfellow,  Lowell,  Mr.  Fox, 
Mr.  Winthrop,  the  Russian  Consul,  myself,  and  his 
suite.  It  was  very  handsome  and  very  pleasant,  and 
I  had  some  very  pretty  speeches  made  to  me,  as  I 
don't  doubt  everybody  else  did,  for  it  is  my  belief  that 
flattering  adjectives  are  the  modern  substitute  for  the 
broad  pieces  which  princes  and  nobles  used  to  scatter 
so  freely  in  other  days.  .  .  . 

Just  now  I  am  in  rather  good  spirits,  because  I 
have  begun  a  new  series  of  papers  for  The  Atlantic, 
for  which  I  am  to  be  handsomely  paid,  and  which 
people  seem  to  be  inclined  to  accept  kindly.  I  do  not 
think  I  am  quite  contented  unless  I  am  doing  some 
thing  besides  lecture  at  the  College ;  but  I  can  never 
come  within  sight  of  that  industry  which  would  have 


TO   JOHN  LOTHKOP  MOTLEY  193 

made  you  famous  for  learning,  if  that  was  not  eclipsed 
by  more  brilliant  qualities.  I  hope  you  are  going  on 
with  your  work  to  your  satisfaction,  and  I  can't  help 
hoping  you  will  get  through  with  it,  by  and  by,  and 
come  back  to  the  place  that  wants  you  and  the  friends 
that  miss  you.  We  come  together  on  Saturdays  and 
have  good  talks  and  pleasant,  rather  than  jolly,  times. 
Many  of  your  old  friends  are  commonly  there, — 
among  the  rest  Sumner  not  rarely.  .  .  .  There  is  a 
great  deal  of  good  feeling,  I  think,  in  our  little  circle 
of  literary  and  scientific  people  here.  I  find  Long 
fellow  peculiarly  sweet  in  disposition,  gentle,  soothing 
to  be  with,  not  commonly  brilliant  in  conversation,  but 
at  times  very  agreeable,  and  saying  excellent  things 
with  a  singular  modesty.  It  is  almost  impossible  to 
make  him  speak  in  public,  —  he  would  not  say  one 
word  when  called  upon  at  the  dinner  to  the  Grand 
Duke,  —  but  at  the  last  Club  he  offered  the  health  of 
Agassiz,  —  who  was  just  about  to  leave  on  the  explor 
ing  expedition  for  the  Pacific,  — and  made  a  very 
neat  little  speech,  which  was  received  with  much 
applause.  .  .  . 

I  ought  to  have  spoken,  but  I  forgot  it,  of  Sumner's 
attitude  to  Grant,  which,  I  judge  from  the  papers,  is 
one  of  uncompromising  hostility.  Attempts  have  been 
made  to  reconcile  them,  but  it  seems  without  success. 
He  is  now  going  very  strongly  for  the  one-term  prin 
ciple, —  not  to  go  into  effect  [till?]  after  the  next 
election.  You  know  all  about  this,  very  probably,  by 
direct  information  from  Sumner  himself. 

Well,  I  have  jase  to  more  than  your  heart's  con 
tent,  I  am  sure,  and  I  can  only  send  my  love  and  my 
wife's  love  to  all  of  you,  and  assure  you  all  that  many 
friends  want  to  see  you  all  very  much,  and  we  as 
much  as  any. 

VOL.  II. 


194  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

BOSTON,  August  28,  1872. 

MY  DEAR  MOTLEY,  —  I  want  to  talk  to  you  about 
matters  that  interest  everybody,  but  my  pen  will  have 
its  way  and  begin  as  usual  with  my  own  affairs.  I 
have  got  through  the  series  of  papers  I  am  writing 
for  The  Atlantic  in  good  season,  and  they  will  be 
published  from  month  to  month  during  the  year,  and 
in  a  volume  on  the  17th  of  October. 

Your  niece-in-law,  Mrs.  Lewis  Stackpole,  is  one  of 
the  few  civilized  persons  I  have  seen  on  the  pavement 
since  I  came  back.  She  was  in  Boston  on  a  flying 
visit,  looking  as  ruddy  and  as  hearty  as  rowing  and 
sailing  could  make  her.  The  children  were  all  well, 
she  said,  —  little  Lewis  and  I  are  great  friends,  and 
when  I  lift  him  up  he  drops  my  letters  into  the  iron 
box  with  a  skill  which  he  and  I  consider  remarkable. 

A  year  ago  about  this  time  I  was  staying  at  Na- 
hant,  in  the  house  with  Sumner.  He  talked  a  good 
deal  with  me  about  public  matters,  —  among  other 
things  about  the  next  election.  Did  I  think  Grant 
would  be  reflected  ?  —  Yes,  I  did.  —  You  think  Grant 
will  be  the  next  President,  do  you  ?  —  Yes,  I  do.  Sum 
ner  looked  as  many  volumes  as  ever  did  my  Lord  Bur- 
leigh,  but  said  nothing.  I  have  not  seen  him  since 
the  astounding  political  movements  of  the  last  few 
months.  I  must  say  —  but  you  know  all  about  it  —  a 
great  deal  more,  probably,  than  I  do  —  that  he  does 
not  carry  his  usual  following  with  him.  I  think  he 
must  have  been  startled  to  find  that,  of  all  his  politi 
cal  associates,  General  Banks,  whose  company  I  fear 
he  would  not  have  elected,  is  the  only  one  with  any 
thing  more  than  a  local  name,  whom  he  has  trans- 


TO   JOHN  LOTHEOP  MOTLEY  195 

f erred  to  the  new  party,  — I  mean  among  our  Massa 
chusetts  people.  You  will  smile  when  you  see  I  say 
"  he  has  transferred."  I  did  not  mean  to  put  it  quite 
so  strongly,  but  I  doubt  if  he  would  be  greatly 
shocked,  for  our  friend  Charles,  who  has  been  and  is 
a  great  power  in  the  land,  is  a  little  prone  to  think 
retat  c'est  moi.  I  trust  you  are  sensible  enough  not 
to  consider  my  opinion  as  worth  two  cents.  But  such 
as  it  is  I  put  it  on  record  for  my  future  confusion,  if 
I  turn  out  to  be  mistaken.  I  believe  the  Greeley 
movement  will  be  a  diminuendo,  and  the  Grant  and 
Wilson  one  a  crescendo.  I  happened  to  meet  that 

illustrious  swell,   Sam  O ,  this  morning,  looking 

as  big  as  if  he  had  just  swallowed  the  Archbishops 
of  York  and  Canterbury,  and  I  found  his  talks  with 
New  York  people  of  different  conditions  and  interests 
convinced  him  of  the  same  thing.  I  do  not  suppose 
you  mean  to  take  any  part  in  this  contest,  but  I 
thought  you  would  like  to  have  my  guess  to  throw 
into  the  heap  of  conjectures.  It  seems  odd  to  find 
Garrison  and  Phillips,  Dana  and  Hoar,  all  going 
directly  against  Sumner. 

I  see  your  book  is  soon  promised.  How  happy  you 
ought  to  consider  yourself  that  you  have  a  record  of 
noble  achievements,  which  have  given  you  a  great  and 
lasting  reputation  to  fall  back  upon  after  the  disap 
pointments  of  political  life,  which  not  even  Sumner's 
life-long  service  could  secure  him  against.  Love  to 
your  wife  and  children. 

November  16, 1872,  Saturday. 

MY  DEAR  MOTLEY,  —  I  wrote  to  you  on  Michael 
mas  day,  as  an  Englishman  would  reckon,  September 
29th,  a  couple  of  sheets  of  the  usual  personalities  and 


196  OLIVER   WENDELL    HOLMES 

trivialities,  I  suppose,  for  I  hardly  know  what  was  in 
them.  Now  I  feel  as  if  I  had  something  to  write 
about,  and  "yet  I  really  believe  I  have  very  little  to 
tell  you  in  addition  to  what  you  must  have  learned 
through  many  channels  before  this  letter  reaches  you. 
The  recollection  of  the  Great  Fire  will  always  be 
associated  with  a  kindly  thought  of  yourself  in  my 
memory.  For  on  Saturday,  the  9th  November,  your 
sister,  Mrs.  S.  Rodman,  sent  me  a  package  of  little 
Dutch  story-books,  which  you  had  been  so  good  as  to 
procure  for  me.  You  have  no  idea  with  what  a  child 
like,  or  if  you  will  childish,  interest  I  looked  at  those 
little  story-books.  I  was  sitting  in  my  library,  my 
wife  opposite,  somewhere  near  nine  o'clock,  perhaps, 
when  I  heard  the  fire-bells  and  left  the  Dutch  picture- 
books,  which  I  was  very  busy  with  (trying  to  make 
out  the  stories  with  the  aid  of  the  pictures,  which  was 
often  quite  easy),  and  went  to  the  north  window. 
Nothing  there.  We  see  a  good  many  fires  in  the 
northern  hemisphere,  which  our  windows  command, 
and  always  look,  when  we  hear  an  alarm,  towards 
Charlestown,  East  Cambridge,  Cambridge,  and  the 
towns  beyond.  Seeing  nothing  in  that  direction  I 
went  to  the  windows  on  Beacon  Street,  and  looking 
out  saw  a  column  of  light  which  I  thought  might 
come  from  the  neighborhood  of  the  corner  of  Boyl- 
ston  and  Tremont  streets,  where  stands  one  of  the 
finest  edifices  in  Boston,  the  "  Hotel  Boylston,"  put 
up  by  Charles  Francis  Adams.  The  fire  looked  so 
formidable,  I  went  out,  thinking  I  would  go  to  Com 
monwealth  Avenue  and  get  a  clear  view  of  it.  As  I 
went  in  that  direction  I  soon  found  that  I  was  ap 
proaching  a  great  conflagration.  There  was  no  getting 
very  near  the  fire  ;  but  that  night  and  the  next  morn- 


TO   JOHN  LOTHBOP  MOTLEY  197 

ing  I  saw  it  dissolving  the  great  high  buildings,  which 
seemed  to  melt  away  in  it.  My  son  Wendell  made 
a  remark  which  I  found  quite  true,  that  great  walls 
would  tumble  and  yet  one  would  hear  no  crash,  — 
they  came  down  as  if  they  had  fallen  on  a  vast  feather 
bed.  Perhaps,  as  he  thought,  the  air  was  too  full  of 
noises  for  us  to  note  what  would  in  itself  have  been  a 
startling  crash.  I  hovered  round  the  Safety  Vaults 
in  State  Street,  where  I  had  a  good  deal  of  destructi 
ble  property  of  my  own  and  others,  but  no  one  was 
allowed  to  enter  them.  So  I  saw  (on  Sunday  morn 
ing)  the  fire  eating  its  way  straight  toward  my  depos 
its,  and  millions  of  others  with  them,  and  thought  how 
I  should  like  it  to  have  them  wiped  out  with  that  red 
flame  that  was  coming  along  clearing  everything 
before  it.  But  I  knew  all  was  doing  that  could  be 
done,  and  so  I  took  it  quietly  enough,  and  managed 
to  sleep  both  Saturday  and  Sunday  night  tolerably 
well,  though  I  got  up  every  now  and  then  to  see  how 
far  and  how  fast  the  flames  were  spreading  northward. 
Before  Sunday  night,  however,  they  were  tolerably 
well  in  hand,  so  far  as  I  could  learn,  and  on  Monday 
all  the  world  within  reach  was  looking  at  the  wilder 
ness  of  ruins.  To-day,  Saturday,  I  went  with  my 
wife  to  the  upper  story  of  Hovey's  store  on  Summer 
Street,  a  great  establishment,  —  George  Gardner,  you 
remember,  owns  the  building,  —  which  was  almost 
miraculously  saved.  The  scene  from  the  upper  win 
dows  was  wonderful  to  behold.  Right  opposite, 
Trinity  Church,  its  tower  standing,  its  walls  partly 
fallen,  more  imposing  as  a  ruin  than  it  ever  was  in  its 
best  estate,  —  everything  flat  to  the  water,  so  that  we 
saw  the  ships  in  the  harbor  as  we  should  have  done 
from  the  same  spot  in  the  days  of  Blackstone  (if  there 


198  OLIVEE   WENDELL   HOLMES 

had  been  ships  then  and  no  trees  in  the  way),  here 
and  there  a  tall  chimney,  —  two  or  three  brick  piers 
for  safes,  one  with  a  safe  standing  on  it  as  calm  as  if 
nothing  had  happened,  —  piles  of  smoking  masonry, 
the  burnt  stump  of  the  flagstaff  in  Franklin  Street, 
—  groups  of  people  looking  to  see  where  their  stores 
were,  or  hunting  for  their  safes,  or  round  a  fire-engine 
which  was  playing  on  the  ruins  that  covered  a  safe,  to 
cool  them,  so  it  could  be  got  out,  —  cordons  military 
and  of  the  police  keeping  off  the  crowds  of  people 
who  have  flocked  in  from  all  over  the  country,  etc., 
etc. 

Any  reporter  for  a  penny  paper  could  tell  you  the 
story,  I  have  no  doubt,  a  great  deal  better  than  I  can. 
You  will  have  it  in  every  form,  —  official,  picturesque, 
sensational,  photographic ;  we  have  had  great  pictorial 
representations  of  it  in  the  illustrated  papers  for  two 
or  three  days. 

I  hope  you  and  your  friends  lose  nothing  of  impor 
tance.  .  .  .  But  everybody  seems  to  bear  up  cheer 
fully  and  hopefully  against  the  disaster,  and  the  only 
thought  seems  to  be  how  best  and  soonest  to  repair 
damages. 

Things  are  going  on  now  pretty  regularly.  Froude 
is  here,  lecturing ;  I  went  to  hear  him  Thursday,  and 
was  interested.  He  referred  to  "  your  great  histo 
rian,  Motley,"  in  the  course  of  his  lecture.  After 
the  lecture  we  had  a  very  pleasant  meeting  of  the 
Historical  Society  at  Mr.  J.  A.  Lowell's,  where 
Froude  was  present.  Winthrop  read  a  long  and 
really  interesting  account  of  the  fires  which  had  hap 
pened  in  Boston  since  its  settlement,  beginning  with 
Cotton  Mather's  account  of  different  ones,  and  coming 
down  to  the  "  Great  Fire  "  of  1760.  Much  of  what 


TO   JOHN   LOTHROP  MOTLEY  199 

he  read  I  find  in  Drake's  History  of  Boston^  from 
which  also  I  learn  that  the  "  Great  Fire  "  began  in 
the  house  of  Mrs.  Mary  Jackson  and  Son  at  the  sign 
of  the  Brazen  Head  in  Cornhill,  and  that  all  the 
buildings  on  Colonel  Wendell's  wharf  were  burned. 
My  mother  used  to  tell  me  that  her  grandfather 
(Col.  W.)  lost  forty  buildings  in  that  fire,  which 
always  made  me  feel  grand,  as  being  the  descendant 
of  one  that  hath  had  losses,  —  in  fact  makes  me  feel  a 
little  grand  now,  in  telling  you  of  it.  Most  people's 
grandfathers  in  Boston,  to  say  nothing  of  their  great 
grandfathers,  got  their  living  working  in  their  shirt 
sleeves,  but  when  a  man's  g.  g.  lost  forty  buildings, 
it  is  almost  up  to  your  sixteen  quarterings  that  you 
knew  so  much  about  in  your  Austrian  experience.  .  .  . 


August  26, 1873. 

MY  DEAR  MOTLEY,  —  You  can  imagine  how  sad  all 
your  friends  felt  when  they  got  that  first  story  of  your 
illness.  It  came  in  such  a  way  that  it  was  hard  to 
disbelieve,  and  although  we  all  hoped  that  it  might 
be  a  telegraphic  sensational  over-statement,  the  relief 
was  very  great  and  the  rejoicing  most  hearty  when 
we  received  the  second  message,  that  your  complaint 
had  been  magnified  in  an  "  absurdly  exaggerated " 
story,  and  that  it  did  not  threaten  your  life  or  your 
continued  usefulness  and  enjoyment.  There  are  few 
men  better  loved  by  their  friends  than  yourself ; 
and  who  are  there  of  whom  their  country  is  prouder 
as  representing  its  noblest  literary  attainment  and 
achievement  ?  Such  was  the  feeling  produced  by 
that  first  telegram  that  it  seemed  almost  like  a  resur 
rection  to  picture  you  again  in  health,  and  in  the  full 


200  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

exercise  of  all  your  active  powers.  But  I,  who  saw 
Agassiz  utterly  prostrated  by  an  attack  evidently  in 
volving  the  nervous  centres,  and  have  since  met  him 
again  and  again  in  company  and  at  the  Club  as  full 
of  life  as  ever,  and  seen  him  successfully  start  a  new 
school  on  his  island  domain,  am  ready  to  believe  that 
great  scholars  are  beyond  the  reach  of  those  enemies 
to  life  which  are  too  much  for  common  people.  You 
know  Ben  Pierce  has  shown  that  good  brains  make 
their  owners  live  longer  than  ordinary  ones.  Only 
they  must  rest  at  intervals  from  their  work.  I  believe 
the  absolute  necessity  of  this  is  recognized  by  our 
practitioners  of  to-day  as  never  before,  and  I  trust,  if 
you  have  been  working  too  hard,  they  will  scare  you 
into  a  flash  of  idleness,  or,  at  the  most,  easy  labor. 

All  the  above  is  said  in  virtue  of  my  once  having 
been  your  medical  adviser.  You  may  be  well  enough 
to  laugh  at  doctors  before  this  reaches  you,  and  I 
most  sincerely  hope  that  your  neuralgia,  or  whatever 
the  trouble  may  be,  has  left  you,  with  nothing  to 
remember  but  the  hint  that  you  must  not  overtax  that 
vast  capacity  for  work  and  that  indomitable  spirit, 
which  have  already  raised  such  enduring  monuments. 

May  I  gossip  a  few  minutes?  I  write,  you  see, 
from  Nahant,  where  I  have  been  during  July  and 
August,  staying  with  my  wife  in  the  cottage  you  must 
remember  as  Mr.  Charles  Amory's.  ...  So  I  have 
been  here,  as  I  said,  playing  cuckoo  in  the  nest,  with 
my  wife,  who  enjoys  Nahant  much  more  than  I  do 
—  having  had  more  or  less  of  asthma  to  take  off 
from  my  pleasures.  Still,  there  has  been  much  that 
is  agreeable,  and  as  a  change  from  city  life  I  have 
found  it  a  kind  of  refreshment. 

Many  of  your  old  friends  are  our  neighbors.   Long- 


TO  JOHN  LOTHBOP  MOTLEY        201 

fellow  is  hard  by,  with  Tom  Appleton  in  the  same 
house,  and  for  a  fortnight  or  so  Sumner  as  his  guest. 
I  have  enjoyed  a  great  deal  in  their  company.  Sum 
ner,  who  was  very  nearly  killed  and  buried  by  the 
newspapers,  seems  as  well  as  ever,  and  gave  us  famous 
accounts  of  what  he  did  and  saw  in  England,  among 
other  things  a  certain  christening,  where  a  Very  Dis 
tinguished  Personage  officiated  as  godmother.  It 
sounded  like  a  story  out  of  a  picture-book  to  our  ears, 
unused  to  such  grandeur,  and  we  listened  like  the 
three-years  child  of  "The  Ancient  Mariner."  You 
remember  our  old  friend  Pepys ;  well,  I  don't  believe 
you  made  as  much  of  a  live  queen  as  he  did  of  a 
mummied  one. 

Nearly  opposite  me  is ,  who  calls  you  by  your 

old  college  name,  as  Falstaff  called  the  Prince  Hal, 
and  who  with  all  of  us  was  greatly  concerned  when  we 

got  the  false  telegram.    and  his  wife  come  in  and 

out  of  their  square  box  of  a  house  like  the  little  man 
and  woman  who  emerge  from  the  respective  doors  of 
their  small  residence  as  the  weather  is  fair  or  foul. 
He  sits  and  smokes  on  the  piazza;  she  waters  her 
plants  with  the  fidelity  of  a  nursing-mother.  Time 
has  not  darkened  his  locks  or  softened  the  somewhat 
rigid  outlines  of  his  character ;  he  is  still  "  a  good 
hater,"  and  tosses  the  objects  of  his  contempt  with  a 
short,  muscular  jerk,  as  a  bull  tosses  a  dog.  I  think 
he  does  not  touch  the  world  at  a  great  many  points 
—  in  which  particular  he  differs  from  the  porcupine. 
There  is  something  likeable  if  not  lovable  in  hard  old 

;  everybody  likes  a  rill  from  a  rock  better  than 

the  water  of  a  stream  that  runs  profusely  over  sand  or 
mud.  A  little  further  on  is  your  long-suffering  class 
mate,  I .  I  drop  in  to  see  him  every  day  or  two. 


202  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

Invalidism  is  a  profitable  recreation,  but  a  poor  pro 
fession.  You  remember  the  iron  chamber  with  seven 
windows  overhead,  in  the  Blackwood  story.  The 
captive  wakes  the  second  morning  and  counts  but  six  ; 
the  third  morning  he  can  count  but  Jive,  and  so  on, 

until  the  prison  walls  close  on  him.     Poor  I has 

been  going  through  some  such  experience ;  he  bears  it 
as  well  as  might  be  expected,  but  his  ailments  neces 
sarily  absorb  too  much  of  his  thought  for  his  mind  to 
keep  its  interest  in  other  matters,  as  it  would  were  he 
not  always  suffering.  Still,  I  think  he  likes  to  have 
his  friends  visit  him,  and  it  has  been  one  of  my  chief 
pleasures  here  to  drop  in  and  have  a  chat  with  him, 
that  should  make  him  forget  his  troubles,  if  that  might 
be,  for  a  few  minutes,  or  a  good  many  minutes,  not 
very  rarely. 

I  have  dined  since  I  have  been  here  at  Mr.  George 
Peabody's  with  Longfellow,  Sumner,  Apple  ton,  and 
William  Amory ;  at  Cabot  Lodge's  with  nearly  the 
same  company ;  at  Mr.  James's  with  L.  and  S.,  and  at 
Longfellow's  en  famille,  pretty  nearly.  Very  pleas 
ant  dinners.  I  wish  you  could  have  been  at  all  of 
them.  I  find  a  singular  charm  in  the  society  of  Long 
fellow,  —  a  soft  voice,  a  sweet  and  cheerful  temper,  a 
receptive  rather  than  an  aggressive  intelligence,  the 
agreeable  flavor  of  scholarship  without  any  pedantic 
ways,  and  a  perceptible  soupgon  of  humor,  not  enough 
to  startle  or  surprise  or  keep  you  under  the  strain  of 
over-stimulation,  which  I  am  apt  to  feel  with  very 
witty  people.  Sumner  seems  to  me  to  have  less  imagi 
nation,  less  sense  of  humor  or  wit,  than  almost  any 
man  of  intellect  I  ever  knew.  P.  B.  said  of  him  in 
the  Temple  Place  days,  that  if  you  told  him  the  moon 
was  made  of  green  cheese,  he  would  say,  "No!  it 


TO   JOHN  LOTHROP  MOTLEY  203 

cannot  be  so,"  and  give  you  solid  reasons  to  the  con 
trary.  We  had  a  pleasant  little  laugh  over  his  un 
imaginative  way  of  looking  at  things  to-day.  But  we 
like  to  hear  him  talk,  and  give  him  his  head  whenever 
he  gets  into  a  narrative  quorum  pars,  —  and  you  know 
well  in  how  many  large  affairs  and  with  how  many 
notable  persons  he  has  been  concerned  in  his  national 
and  personal  career. 

I  have  been  twice  at  your  brother  Edward's,  who 
seems  to  have  everything  charming  about  him.  My 
wife  thinks  his  two  daughters  the  very  pictures  of 
all  that  is  lovely,  and  I  must  say  it  would  be  hard 
to  find  two  sweeter  specimens  of  young  American 
womanhood.  I  was  quite  surprised  at  his  daughter- 
in-law's  talent  for  sketching.  She  catches  likenesses 
in  a  remarkably  happy  way. 

Nahant  is  a  gossipy  Little  Pedlington  kind  of  a 
place.  As  Alcibiades  and  his  dog  are  not  here,  they 
are  prattling  and  speculating  and  worrying  about  the 

cost  of  Mr.  J 's  new  house,  which,  externally  at 

least,  is  the  handsomest  country  house  I  ever  saw, 
and  is  generally  allowed  to  be  a  great  success.  The 
inside  is  hardly  finished,  except  the  hall  and  dining- 
room,  which  are  very  fine. 

On  Monday  we  go  back  to  Boston,  after  two 
months'  stay.  Mr.  Sargent  sailed  for  home  on  the 
21st  in  the  Siberia.  I  have  not  room  for  any  more 
gossip,  and  there  is  not  the  least  chance  for  all  the 
kind  messages  I  should  send  you  from  the  many 
friends  all  around  me. 

Pray  do  not  think  of  troubling  yourself  to  answer 
this  letter,  no  matter  how  well  you  feel. 


204  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

May  18, 1874. 

MY  DEAR  MOTLEY,  —  It  was  a  real  surprise  to  me 
to  get  your  letter  of  the  17th  April.  Much  as  I  was 
gratified  to  receive  such  a  proof  that  your  mind  and 
your  hand  were,  so  far  as  that  showed,  in  good  work 
ing  order,  I  had  to  accept  the  fact  you  told  me  — 
that  a  pen  felt  like  a  sledge-hammer  in  your  hand ; 
and  my  first  impulse  was  to  say  you  must  not  make 
such  an  effort  again  to  give  me  the  assurance  that  you 
remember  me  kindly.  I  know  you  do,  and  if  you 
remain  as  silent  as  your  own  hero,  or  the  Egyptian 
Sphinx,  or  Harpocrates  himself,  you  never  need  think 
that  I  shall  count  you  in  my  debt,  or  forget  to  let 
you  hear  from  me  now  and  then,  whenever  I  have 
anything  to  tell  you. 

Let  me  talk,  then,  as  if  you  were  sitting  by  me  here 
in  my  library,  —  not  forcing  myself  to  speak  only  of 
what  is  enlivening,  but  speaking  of  things  as  they 
have  been  going  on  round  us  lately. 

I  know  you  will  want  to  hear  something  about  the 
friends  we  have  lost  lately,  but  I  hardly  remember 
what  I  have  already  written ;  I  am  sure  at  any  rate 
that  we  had  not  had  Schurz's  Eulogy.  It  was  a  re 
markably  satisfactory  and  successful  performance, 
happy  in  its  delineation  of  the  grand  features  of  Sum- 
ner's  character,  picturesque  in  its  details  of  scenes  in 
which  he  figured,  written  in  miraculously  good  Eng 
lish  for  a  foreigner,  and  delivered  in  a  very  impressive 
way.  I  dined  with  him  and  his  wife  and  daughter 
at  Mrs.  Lodge's  after  the  Eulogy,  and  passed  a  very 
pleasant  evening.  Of  course,  let  me  say  en  passant, 
Mrs.  Lodge  always  has  something  affectionate  to  say 
about  you  and  your  family  whenever  I  meet  her. 
Your  estimate  of  the  loss  the  nation  has  sustained  in 


TO   JOHN  LOTHEOP  MOTLEY  205 

Summer's  death  does  not  seem  in  the  least  an  exag 
gerated  one.  I  should  say  that  the  general  verdict 
would  concur  very  nearly  with  your  own  opinion. 

Coming  home  from ,  William  Amory  joined 

me,  and  wanted  to  know  all  I  could  tell  him  about 
you.  I  always  find  him  good  company  —  in  some 
ways  better  than  anybody  else,  for  he  has  known 
Boston  on  its  fairer  side  longer  as  well  as  better  than 
almost  any  other  person  I  can  talk  with  easily,  has  a 
good  memory,  talks  exceedingly  well,  and  has  a  pleas 
ant,  courteous  way  which  is  exceptional  rather  than 
the  rule  among  the  people  that  make  up  our  New 
England  society. 

Yesterday  I  went  out  to  Cambridge  and  called  on 
Mrs.  Agassiz  —  the  first  time  I  have  seen  her  since 
her  husband's  death.  She  was  at  work  on  his  corre 
spondence,  and  talked  in  a  very  quiet,  interesting  way 
about  her  married  life.  What  a  singular  piece  of 
good  fortune  it  was  that  Agassiz,  coming  to  a  strange 
land,  should  have  happened  to  find  a  woman  so  won 
derfully  fitted  to  be  his  wife  that  it  seems  as  if  he 
could  not  have  bettered  his  choice  if  all  womankind 
had  passed  before  him,  as  the  creatures  filed  in  pro 
cession  by  the  father  of  the  race ! 

I  have  been,  too,  to  see  Hillard,  and  saw  him  for 
the  first  time.  He  is  quite  crippled  —  cannot  move 
his  arm,  and  walks  with  a  crutch,  but  talked  not  with 
out  a  certain  degree  of  cheerfulness.  I  was  told  that 
he  had  improved  very  much  within  the  last  few  weeks. 
Another  invalid,  whom  I  visit  now  and  then,  is  old 
Dr.  Bigelow.  He  is  now  eighty-seven  years  old,  and 
I  think  is  rather  proud  of  saying  so.  He  used  to  be 
rather  shy  about  his  age,  I  fancied,  though  the  Trien- 


206  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

nial  Catalogue  settles  the  matter  pretty  closely  for  all 
our  graduates.  His  iron-gray  wig  was  the  most  ad 
mirably  managed  confession  with  extenuating  circum 
stances  that  ever  perruquier  put  together.  There  was 
just  gray  enough  to  hint  that  he  did  not  call  himself 
exactly  young,  and  a  good  background  of  dark,  to 
imply  that  others  were  not  to  call  him  old.  He  is 
utterly  blind,  as  I  think  I  have  told  you,  and  yet  is 
very  cheerful,  and  talks  of  old  times  in  a  very  agree 
able  and  amusing  way. 

Since  I  wrote  last  I  have  got  through  my  winter 
course  of  lectures,  and  enjoy  my  release  from  almost 
daily  duties,  which  I  like  well  enough,  and  which 
probably  make  me  happier  than  I  should  be  without 
them.  I  begin  now,  since  the  new  order  of  things 
came  in  with  the  new  president,  in  October,  and  lec 
ture  five  and  four  times  a  week  until  the  beginning  of 
May.  It  used  to  be  only  four  months.  But  even  in 
the  interval  of  lectures  I  do  not  get  free  from  a  good 
deal  of  work  of  one  kind  and  another.  I  have  done 
enough  to  know  what  work  means,  and  should  think  I 
had  been  a  hard  worker  if  I  did  not  see  what  others 
have  accomplished.  I  can  never  look  on  those  great 
histories  of  yours  and  think  what  toil  they  cost,  what 
dogged  perseverance  as  well  as  higher  qualities  they 
imply,  without  feeling  almost  as  if  I  had  been  an  idler. 
But  I  suppose  it  is  not  worth  one's  while  to  think  too 
much  about  what  he  might  have  done  or  might  have 
been.  Our  self-determination  is,  I  suspect,  much  more 
limited  than  we  are  in  the  habit  of  considering  it. 
Schopenhauer  says  that  if  a  cannon-ball  in  its  flight 
suddenly  became  conscious,  it  would  think  it  was 
moving  of  its  own  free-will.  I  must  not  let  my  meta 
physics  take  away  the  merit  of  your  labors,  but  still  I 


TO  JOHN  LOTHROP  MOTLEY         207 

think  you  were  in  a  certain  sense  predestinated  and 
forced  by  some  mysterious  and  irresistible  impulse  to 
give  Holland  a  history,  and  make  yourself  a  name  in 
the  world  of  letters. 

I  have  not  yet  read  the  Life  of  Barneveldt,  and  can 
not  do  justice  to  it  until  I  have  finished  up  some  things 
that  have  been  waiting  to  be  done  and  will  not  be  put 
off  any  longer.  But  I  think  I  shall  have  a  special 
enjoyment  in  it,  not  merely  because  it  is  one  of  your 
pieces  of  historical  tapestry,  but  for  a  reason  I  will 
tell  you.  I  happened  to  see  in  a  London  Catalogue 
that  was  sent  me  the  name  of  a  book  which  you,  no 
doubt,  know  well  enough,  and  which  may  be  of  small 
account  in  your  valuation  —  Meursii  Athence  Batavce. 
It  has  something  more  than  fifty  portraits  of  Profes 
sors  in  the  University,  together  with  plans  of  Leyden 
and  the  manner  of  its  relief,  etc.,  etc.  I  have  become 
so  familiar  with  the  features  of  Gomarus  and  Ar- 
minius,  of  William  of  Orange  and  "  Janus  Dousa,"  of 
Grotius  and  Joseph  Scaliger  and  the  rest,  that  I  am 
all  ready  to  read  about  the  times  in  which  they  lived. 
I  took  down  your  volume  with  the  siege  of  Leyden  in 
it,  and  read  it  with  infinite  delight,  having  the  plan 
of  my  little  quarto  volume  before  me.  I  began  to 
understand,  as  I  never  did  before,  the  delight  which 
must  have  blended  itself  with  your  labors  in  bringing 
to  the  light  the  old  story  of  that  little  land  of  heroes ; 
and  my  own  Dutch  blood  moved  me  to  a  livelier  sense 
of  gratitude  to  you  for  all  you  had  done  to  rescue  that 
noble  past  from  oblivion,  than  I  had  ever  felt  before. 

I  must  have  told  you  in  my  last  all  the  gossip  I 
could  think  of  about  the  gayeties  of  the  past  winter. 
I  have  come  down  —  or  got  up  —  to  dinner-parties  as 
the  substantial  basis  of  my  social  life.  They  have 


208  OLIVER   WENDELL  HOLMES 

slacked  off  (Novanglice)  of  late,  so  that  I  am  now  as 
domestic  as  a  gallinaceous  fowl,  in  place  of  chirruping 
and  flitting  from  bough  to  bough. 

In  the  mean  time  I  have  my  little  grandchild  to 
remind  me  that  I  must  not  think  too  much  of  the 
pomps  and  vanities  of  the  world,  with  two  generations 
crowding  me  along. 

We  are  all  well,  and  living  along  in  our  quiet  way 
with  as  much  comfort  as  we  have  any  right  to,  and 
more  than  most  people  have  to  content  themselves 
with.  I  have  one  trouble  I  cannot  get  rid  of,  namely, 
that  they  tease  me  to  write  for  every  conceivable  an 
niversary.  I  wrote  a  hymn  which  was  sung  at  the 
delivery  of  Schurz's  Eulogy.  Waldo  Higginson  came 
this  afternoon  to  get  me  to  write  a  hymn  for  the  dedi 
cation —  no  —  the  opening  or  completion  of  the  Me 
morial  Hall.  You  remember  Sydney  Smith's  John 
Bull  —  how  he  "blubbers  and  subscribes,"  —  I  scold 
and  consent. 

July  26,  1874. 

MY  DEAR  MOTLEY,  —  I  am  in  town,  that  is,  if  you 
will  let  me  call  Boston  town  —  along  with  my  wife, 
never  more  agreeably  alone,  except  that  the  middle  of 
the  day  is  rather  hot.  We  are  both  trying  very  hard 
to  be  lazy,  which  is  next  to  impossible  for  her,  and 
not  so  easy  for  me  as  I  could  wish.  In  the  mean  time 
the  world  is  providing  us  with  sensations  of  various 
kinds,  which  keep  up  something  like  pulsations  in  the 
emotional  centres.  First,  we  had  the  comet,  which 
whisked  its  tail  under  the  nose  of  the  Great  Bear  for 
a  few  evenings,  and  which  somebody  announced  in 
one  of  our  papers  as  about  to  close  the  human  stage 


TO   JOHN  LOTHROP  MOTLEY  209 

of  terrestrial  developments  by  asphyxiating  the  whole 
of  us  with  carbonic  acid  gas  or  some  such  unbreatha- 
ble  atmosphere.  In  your  higher  latitude  you  ought 
to  have  seen  more  of  "  Coggia's  "  comet,  which  they 
pretended  was  making  straight  at  us  and  to  hit  or 
miss  somewhere  about  the  20th  of  this  month.  Then 
we  had  the  "  boy-fiend,"  —  the  most  remarkable  case 
of  demoniacal  propensities  I  ever  heard  of,  —  a  boy  of 
fourteen  years  old,  who  enticed  small  children  into 
lonely  places  and  cut  and  mutilated  them  in  various 
strange,  yet  quasi  methodical  fashions,  ending  by  cut 
ting  the  throats  of  a  little  girl  and  afterwards  of  a 
little  boy.  They  had  a  story  of  pre-natal  influences, 
that  reminded  me  of  a  heroine  of  one  of  my  own  books, 
but  I  believe  it  was  not  founded  in  anything.  Then 
came  the  most  odious,  repulsive,  miserable,  dragging 
piece  of  scandal  this  country  has  ever  known,  —  of 
which  we  have  heard  a  great  deal  too  much  already, 
but  for  that  very  reason  must  now  hear  the  whole, 
that  we  may  know  what  to  think  of  it.  The  Byron 
business  was  bad  enough,  but  Byron  had  been  long 
dead,  and  nobody  took  him  for  a  saint,  however  inno 
cent  he  may  have  been  of  the  particular  offence  Mrs. 
Stowe  charged  upon  him.  But  here  is  the  most  pop 
ular  Protestant  preacher,  I  think,  that  ever  lived,  a 
man  whose  church  would  be  filled,  if  there  was  a  bull 
fight  in  the  next  street,  —  who  gets  a  salary  of  twenty 
thousand  dollars  and  is  worth  it  to  his  church,  —  who, 
as  a  lecturer,  is  handled  by  his  impresario  as  if  he  were 
a  prima  donna,  —  who  has  done  more  sensible,  effect 
ive,  good-natured  talking  and  writing  to  the  great 
middle  class  and  the  "  unknown  public  "  than  any  man 
we  ever  had  in  this  country,  —  with  a  good  deal  of 
Franklin's  sense  and  humor,  with  a  power  of  holding 


210  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

great  assemblies  like  Whitfield,  —  the  best  known 
and  most  popular  private  citizen,  I  suppose,  we  have 
ever  had,  —  a  saint  by  inheritance  and  connections  of 
every  kind,  and  yet  as  human  as  King  David  or 
Eobert  Burns,  so  that  his  inherited  theology  hangs 
about  him  in  rags,  and  shows  the  flesh  of  honest  man 
hood  in  a  way  to  frighten  all  his  co-religionists,  — 
here  is  this  wonderful  creature,  popular  idol,  the  hope 
of  liberal  orthodoxy,  accused  of  reading  the  seventh 
commandment  according  to  the  version  that  left  out 
the  negative.  There  is  no  doubt  that  he  has  compro 
mised  himself  with  unsafe  persons  and  brought  grave 
suspicions  on  himself,  but  the  hope  is  universal  that 
his  defence,  yet  to  come,  will  show  that  he  has  been 
slandered,  and  that  his  own  assertions  of  innocence 
will  be  made  good  by  a  thorough  sifting  of  the  testi 
mony  that  is  brought  against  him.  His  accuser, 
Theodore  Tilton,  appears  as  badly  as  a  man  can,  in 
every  point  of  view,  but  it  is  pretended  that  other 
witnesses  are  to  be  called,  and  sick  as  everybody  is  of 
the  monster  scandal,  it  is  felt  that  all  must  be  known, 
since  so  much  has  already  been  made  public.  I  am 
afraid  you  will  turn  away  with  something  like  disgust 
from  the  pages  that  I  have  filled  with  this  matter,  but 
the  truth  is,  nothing  ever  made  such  a  talk,  and  if  it 
had  been  a  settled  fact  that  the  comet  was  to  hit  the 
earth  on  the  22d  of  July,  late  on  the  evening  of  the 
21st  people  would  have  been  talking  of  the  great 
"  Beecher-Tilton  scandal." 

You  may  well  imagine  I  have  little  but  these  news 
paper  matters  to  talk  to  you  about.  We  are  living  in 
a  desert.  I  feel,  as  I  walk  down  Beacon  Street,  as  if  I 
were  Lord  Macaulay's  New  Zealander.  I  expect  to 
start  a  fox  or  a  woodchuck  as  I  turn  through  Claren- 


TO   JOHN  LOTHROP  MOTLEY  211 

don  or  Dartmouth  Street,  and  to  hear  the  whir  of  the 
partridge  in  Commonwealth  Avenue.  The  truth  is  I 
have  no  country  place  of  my  own,  and  we  are  so  much 
more  comfortable  in  our  house  here  that  we  can  hardly 
make  up  our  minds  to  go  to  any  strange  place  in  the 
country,  or  by  the  seashore.  .  .  . 

Yesterday  the  Saturday  Club  met,  and  found  our 
selves  fourteen,  or  more,  in  all  —  Lowell,  with  his  seven 
L's  great  and  small,  being  with  us  for  the  first  time 
since  his  return.  Except  that  he  has  cut  his  hand 
some  shining  locks,  I  should  not  notice  any  change  in 
him.  He  is  just  as  pleasant  and  natural  as  always, 
and  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  he  has  been  away  so 
long.  Longfellow  is,  I  suppose,  at  Nahant,  at  any 
rate  he  was  not  there ;  but  Emerson  was,  and  Dana 
and  Judge  Hoar,  and  among  the  rest  "  Bill  Hunt," 
the  artist,  who  has  been  a  member  some  time.  .  .  . 
Bill  looked  like  a  St.  Peter  by  Eembrandt,  in  a 
brown  velvet  coat,  and  I  did  not  see  his  infelicities 
depicted  on  his  apostolic  countenance.  .  .  . 

Don't  give  me  up  because  I  have  spoiled  these  two 
sheets  of  note-paper  with  poor,  petty,  paltry  cackle 
about  matters  that  should  never  have  been  talked  of. 
They  have  in  point  of  fact  taken  the  place  of  every 
thing  else  almost,  in  common  talk.  I  have  only  space 
left  to  say  that  you  must  not  think  of  tiring  your 
self  with  holding  that  pen  which  weighs  so  much  in 
your  hand,  even  to  acknowledge  this  letter.  I  hear 
you  have  been  improving,  though  rather  slowly,  and 
I  shall  hope  to  hear  that  you  keep  on  so  until  you 
are  well  enough  to  come  back  and  rejoice  all  our 
hearts. 


212  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

December  21,  1874. 

MY  DEAR  MOTLEY,  —  I  could  hardly  make  up  my 
mind  to  write  until  I  had  something  cheerful  and 
pleasant  to  say,  for  I  knew  that  the  great  trouble  of 
your  brother  Edward's  family  would  sadden  every 
thing  I  should  say  until  you  had  had  time,  and  all  of 
us  had,  to  turn  the  leaf  on  which  that  sorrow  was 
written. 

Now,  then,  that  we  have  another  little  S boy 

next  door  but  one  to  us,  now  that  we  have  just  had 
a  most  agreeable  reminder  of  you  all  in  the  shape  of 
an  English  visitor,  I  feel  as  if  I  could  write  a  Christ 
mas  letter  with  something  of  life  in  it.  ...  As  for 
the  beauty  of  apple  -  dumplings  and  plum  -  puddings 
and  babies'  faces,  that  is  a  matter  I  do  not  go  into  so 
confidently ;  but  I  think  this  is  a  very  good-looking 
baby.  .  .  . 

Mr.  A W ,  to  whom  you  gave  a  letter  to 

me,  proves  to  be  a  very  nice  young  fellow.  There  is 
something  very  pleasing,  ingenuous,  natural,  fresh, 
and  unspoiled  about  him  which  pleases  us  all  very 
much.  He  came  to  dine  with  us  once,  and  made 
himself  very  agreeable  —  quite  different  from  any 
Englishman  I  have  seen  for  a  good  while,  but  having 
a  quality  I  have  recognized  ever  since  my  student-days 
in  Paris  belonging  to  some  young  Englishmen  and 
almost  never  found  in  Americans.  It  is  a  certain 
delightful  childlike  element  —  not  the  emotional  mo 
bility  of  many  continental  people  —  not  that  of  Agas- 
siz,  for  instance,  who  laughed  and  cried  like  a  three- 
year-old  boy,  and  gave  one  such  a  hug  as  a  father 
gives  his  baby  —  a  child  its  father,  I  should  have  said, 
—  but  a  kind  of  simplicity,  I  had  almost  said  inno 
cence,  that  is  almost  never  seen  in  our  hard-featured 


TO   JOHN   LOTHROP  MOTLEY  213 

Yankees.     Mr.  W talked  very  agreeably,  but  he 

had  some  curious  theological  ideas  which  he  brought 
forward  with  the  best  possible  good-nature  and  ease, 
—  about  the  fulfilment  of  Hebrew  prophecies  and  the 
Scarlet  Lady,  and  the  coming  grand  consummation 
of  all  things,  —  queer  ideas  of  one  kind  and  another, 
which  I  suppose  he  grew  up  with  in  one  of  those  quiet 
English  homes  sweet  with  the  sanctities  of  extinct 

O 

beliefs  as  the  tombs  of  dead  Pharaohs  with  the 
balsams  of  ancient  forests.  Well,  we  liked  Mr. 

A "W ,  who  has  been  here  two  or  three  times 

since  he  dined  with  us,  and  pleased  us  even  more  than 
at  first.  ...  I  had  a  very  agreeable  talk  with  an  old 
friend  of  yours  at  the  Club  the  other  day  —  Lord 
Dufferin  —  whom  I  sat  next  to  and  found  a  good 
person  to  have  as  a  dinner-table  neighbor.  I  am  fond 
of  those  brief  prandial  intimacies  with  the  better  sort 
of  people,  used  to  society,  maniable,  malleable,  plastic, 
receptive,  "simpatico"  (choose  your  adjective — the 
last  is  your  own)  on  the  one  hand,  and  suggestive  and 
communicative  on  the  other.  I  am  afraid  the  M.  P. 
is,  as  a  general  thing,  better  company  than  the  M.  C., 
who  calls  one  "  Sir "  when  he  addresses  him,  and 
scorns  any  form  of  adjective  below  its  superlative. 
My  English  visitants,  at  any  rate,  and  most,  not  all, 
of  those  I  have  met  at  the  Club,  have  been  lighter  in 
hand  than  my  own  average  beloved  countrymen.  I 
always  tell  you  about  the  Club,  but  I  have  nothing 
special  to  say  about  it  now,  that  I  can  think  of.  I 
dined  with  our  country's  friend,  Mr.  Forster,  at  Mr. 
Adams's  a  fortnight  or  thereabouts  ago.  I  could  not 
do  much  with  him,  and  I  did  not  try  to,  for  he  —  as 
Mrs.  Adams  told  me  [he]  was  —  seemed  more  like  an 
uncouth,  strong-bodied,  strong-minded  American  than 


214  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

like  my  typical  Englishman.  I  think  it  very  likely 
that  Judge  Hoar,  who  sat  next  him  at  table,  got  on 
with  him  well  enough  —  there  is  something  of  the 
plain  Saxon  in  both  of  them,  which  each  would  soon 
find  out.  .  .  . 

I  have  another  little  matter  to  mention,  which  re 
lates  to  you  personally.  Last  Tuesday  evening  the 
present  publishers  of  The,  Atlantic,  Messrs.  Houghton 
&  Co.,  gave  a  very  handsome  dinner  at  Parker's  to 
the  contributors,  etc.,  to  the  magazine.  Emerson  was 
not  there,  nor  Longfellow,  whose  oldest  son  is  ill  with 
pneumonia,  nor  Lowell,  whose  wife's  sister  is  very  ill. 
But  it  was  a  pleasant  gathering,  though  the  Dii  mino- 
rum  gentium  were  the  chief  part  of  the  company.  I 
was  asked,  among  other  things,  to  speak  of  the  dead 
and  absent  contributors.  When  I  came  to  your  name, 
and  alluded  to  the  way  in  which  you  had  been  treated 
by  the  government,  the  response  was  so  universal  and 
energetic  that  it  showed  the  very  strong  feeling  for 
you  entertained  by  the  assemblage,  and  would  have 
done  your  heart  good  to  hear.  .  .  .  Wishing  you  all 
a  happy  Christmas,  I  am  with  all  kind  remembrances, 
Faithfully  yours. 


April  18,  1875. 

MY  DEAR  MOTLEY,  —  I  read  your  letter  with  feel 
ings  I  could  not  restrain  —  how  could  I  read  such  a 
letter  unmoved  ?  I  feel  too  strongly  now,  as  when 
writing  to  you  before,  that  there  is  nothing  I  can  put 
down  in  words  beyond  a  few  imperfect  expressions  of 
tender  sympathy  and  the  assurance  that  you  are  con 
stantly  in  my  remembrance.  Every  word  you  say 
goes  to  my  heart  as  to  that  of  a  friend  who  knows 


TO   JOHN  LOTHROP  MOTLEY  215 

better  than  most  can  know  what  She  was  who  was 
the  life  of  your  life.  I  keep  picturing  you  to  myself 
alone —  in  one  sense  alone  in  spite  of  dear  compan 
ionships  —  with  your  memories.  Henceforth  I  know 
how  largely,  how  intimately,  you  must  live  in  these. 
If  your  own  health  is  confirmed,  as  we  all  trust  that 
it  will  be,  I  cannot  help  hoping  that  the  poignancy 
of  grief  will,  by  the  kindly  and  at  last  perhaps  cheer 
ing  influences  that  surround  you,  soften  gradually  into 
a  sweet  remembrance  of  the  many  happy  years  that 
have  gone  before.  But  I  dare  not  attempt  to  console 
a  grief  like  yours.  It  must  have  its  own  way,  and 
hush  itself  to  the  repose  of  exhaustion  —  "lie  down 
like  a  tired  child,"  as  Shelley  says  in  those  sad  and 
beautiful  lines  written  near  Naples. 

If  you  were  here  I  might  sit  by  you  in  silence,  just 
to  give  you  the  feeling  that  some  one  was  with  you  in 
the  shadow  for  a  moment.  I  should  listen  to  you, 
and  you  would  not  fear  to  speak  freely  with  me  from 
the  fulness  of  your  heart,  for  you  know  how  every 
word  would  fall  upon  my  ear.  I  feel  now  as  if  all  I 
could  do  would  be  to  listen,  but  no  doubt  after  a  little 
time  we  could  exchange  many  thoughts  and  feelings 
and  recollections,  which  it  might  not  be  ungrateful  to 
you  to  give  an  hour  to  from  time  to  time. 

I  speak  as  if  I  were  claiming  more  share  in  your 
sorrow  than  perhaps  I  ought  to  —  for  I  remember 
that  there  are  those  who  will  come  very  near  to  you  in 
their  affectionate  intercourse,  and  I  hope  that  their 
presence  will  prove  soothing  and  comforting  to  your 
wounded  spirit.  Something,  too,  I  hope  from  change 
of  climate  and  of  scene,  if  you  find  yourself  at  all 
equal  to  the  voyage,  as  I  trust  you  may.  If  you 
should  be  at  Nahant,  during  a  part  of  the  time  at 


216  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

least,  I  hope  to  be  your  neighbor  and  to  see  you  fre 
quently,  if  you  should  find  it  agreeable  to  have  me 
visit  you.  .  .  .  You  see  why  I  do  not  trust  myself  to 
write  more  largely  —  so  much  can  be  said  that  it  is 
hard  to  set  down  on  paper.  Take  these  few  words 
kindly,  with  love  and  best  wishes  for  you  and  all 
yours.  My  wife  wishes  me  to  add  her  little  message 
of  kindest  remembrance. 

February  18,  1876. 

MY  DEAR  MOTLEY,  —  If  I  have  not  written  for  a 
long  time,  it  is  because  my  life  has  been  so  monoto 
nous  and  mechanical  that  I  had  next  to  nothing  to 
tell.  The  pendulum  in  my  old  hall  clock  can  hardly 
move  more  regularly  and  rigidly  back  and  forward 
than  I  do  to  and  from  the  college,  where  for  seven 
months  I  am  a  plodding  lecturer.  I  do  not  complain 
of  this,  —  if  I  could  get  a  salary  of  twenty  or  thirty 
thousand  dollars  for  it  —  or  such  a  one  as  some  of  our 
factory  agents  get  for  losing  our  money  for  us  —  I 
could  almost  be  content  to  lecture  until  I  came  to  the 
last  of  the  seven  ages,  if  I  held  out  so  long.  But  ex 
cept  that  I  am  galvanized  by  a  dinner-party,  now  and 
then,  or  meet  an  old. friend  and  call  up  spirits  from 
the  vasty  deep,  my  life  is  almost  void  of  incident 
beyond  its  every-day  routine.  I  have  nobody  to  visit, 
as  I  could  visit  you  last  summer,  —  nobody  to  talk 
with,  as  I  could  with  you,  and  am  not  like  to  have 
until  you  come  back,  as  I  trust  you  will  one  of  these 
days.  One  friend  I  do  indeed  go  to  see  weekly,  — 
Dr.  Edward  Clarke,  who  is  confined  mostly  to  his  bed 
by  a  disease  of  the  intestines,  with  regard  to  which 
very  grave  fears  are  entertained.  It  is  very  hard  for 
a  man  like  him,  unquestionably  at  the  head  of  his 


TO   JOHN  LOTHROP  MOTLEY  217 

profession  in  Boston,  in  the  full  tide  of  business,  to 
be  chained  as  it  would  be  thought  cruel  to  chain  a 
felon,  and  tortured,  from  time  to  time,  with  wearing 
pains.  I  do  not  know  whether  it  is  the  recollection 
of  the  many  hours  I  passed  with  you,  so  full  of  the 
deepest  and  tenderest  interest  to  me,  and  in  which  I 
could  not  help  feeling  and  knowing  that  my  sympathy, 
at  least,  made  me  a  welcome  visitor,  —  I  do  not  know, 
I  say,  whether  it  is  that  which  has  given  me  the  feel 
ing  which  has  come  over  me,  that  "  it  is  better  to  go 
to  the  house  of  mourning  than  to  the  house  of  feast 
ing,"  and  that  "  sorrow  is  better  than  laughter."  We 
never  know  each  other  until  we  have  come  together 
in  the  hour  of  trial.  I  have  said  many  things  to  you 
that  I  could  not  write,  and  I  hardly  expect  to  have 
such  intimate  confidences  with  any  other  friend  under 
any  circumstances ;  but  I  have  learned  that  I  can  at 
least  do  something  to  lighten  the  weary  hours  of  suf 
fering,  sometimes  by  a  pleasant  look,  or  a  lively  half- 
hour's  talk  about  the  outside  world,  but  far  better 
than  that,  at  the  proper  moment  leaving  all  these 
lesser  thoughts,  and  going  down  into  those  depths  of 
consciousness  where  all  of  us  bury  out  of  sight  our 
hopes,  our  fears,  our  memories,  our  dreams,  —  that 
pale  and  shadowy  world  of  ours,  into  which  it  is  the 
supreme  privilege  of  friendship  to  be  admitted.  No, 
—  not  pale  or  shadowy  to  men  of  strong  natures  and 
quick  sensibilities.  The  world  of  imagination  and 
recollection,  which  makes  the  past  like  the  present, 
never  seemed  so  real  to  me  as  it  [did]  during  the 
period  of  my  frequent  companionship  with  you  last 
summer.  I  cannot  tell  you  all  that  I  feel  I  owe  to 
you  for  making  life  more  real,  more  sincere,  more  pro 
found  in  its  significance,  during  those  hours  I  spent 


218  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

with  you.  To  be  told,  as  I  have  been,  that  they  were 
comforting  to  you  is  a  great  happiness  to  me.  .  .  . 

The  Centennial  people  are  worrying  my  life  out  of 
me,  almost.  The  number  of  letters  I  have  had  to 
answer,  declining  to  do  this  and  that,  of  late,  seems  to 
me  enormous  —  is  really  considerable. 

Any  time  when  one  of  your  daughters  writes,  will 
you  ask  her  to  add,  in  a  postscript,  that  you  got  my 
letter  of  February  18th  —  this  present  letter.  That  is 
all  —  I  wish  to  make  sure  you  got  it. 


May  8,  1876. 

MY  DEAR  MOTLEY,  —  I  am  most  devoutly  thank 
ful  that  my  seven  months'  lectures  are  at  last  over, 
and  I  am  gradually  beginning  to  come  to  myself,  like 
one  awakening  from  a  trance  or  a  fit  of  intoxication. 
You  know  that  the  steady  tramp  of  a  regiment  would 
rock  the  Menai  bridge  from  its  fastenings,  and  so  all 
military  bodies  break  their  step  in  crossing  it.  This 
reiteration  of  lectures  in  even  march,  month  after 
month,  produces  some  such  oscillations  in  one's  mind, 
and  he  longs,  after  a  certain  time,  to  break  up  their 
uniformity.  If  they  kept  on  long  enough,  Harvard 
would  move  over  to  Somerville. 

Your  letter  of  26th  March  gave  me  great  pleasure. 
It  relieved  me  from  the  fear  that  you  were  condemned 
to  the  disease  of  your  eyes,  which  had  seemed  to  me, 
under  the  circumstances,  a  trial  too  hard  to  think  of. 
I  am  rejoiced  to  find  that  you  can  read,  even  though 
you  have  to  use  glasses  (as  I  have  had  to  do  these 
sixteen  years).  I  was  pleased,  too,  to  find  that  you 
were  even  thinking  of  a  little  possible  work  for  the 
summer.  If  it  is  in  place  of  another  visit  to  America 


TO   JOHN   LOTHKOP  MOTLEY  219 

—  Boston  —  Nahant  —  home  —  I  should  personally 
regret  it  more  than  I  can  tell  you,  for  I  count  the 
hours  I  passed  with  you  last  summer  among  the 
sweetest,  the  holiest,  the  dearest,  and  in  one  sense 
the  happiest,  of  all  my  social  life.  It  seems  strange 
to  speak  of  their  happiness,  when  I  saw  you  so  often 
with  all  the  freshness  of  grief  coming  over  you.  But 
those  are  the  hours  when  friendship  means  the  most,  — 
when  we  feel  that  we  come  nearer  than  at  any  other 
time  to  our  intimates,  and  the  sense  that  we  are  per 
haps  lightening  another's  burden  makes  even  the  com 
monest  intercourse  a  source  of  satisfaction.  Besides 
this  you  must  not  forget  that  you,  whose  presence, 
from  your  natural  gifts,  was  always  so  peculiarly 
agreeable  to  me,  have  known  the  world  in  such  a  way 
that  your  conversation  cannot  help  being  interesting 
to  one  who  has  lived  so  purely  provincial  a  life  as  I 
have.  So  when  your  sorrow  came  over  you,  my  heart 
was  for  the  time  full  of  it,  and  when  you,  for  a  little 
while,  were  beguiled  into  forgetfulness,  and  talked 
with  the  life  of  earlier  times,  I  was  sure  of  being 
pleased  with  hearing  a  hundred  things  nobody  else 
could  tell  me.  I  have  told  you,  and  I  must  tell  you 
again  and  again,  that  my  life  has  run  in  a  deeper 
channel  since  the  hours  I  spent  in  your  society  last 
summer.  They  come  back  to  me  from  time  to  time, 
like  visitations  from  another  and  higher  sphere.  No, 
- —  I  never  felt  the  depths  and  the  heights  of  sorrow  so 
before,  and  I  count  it  as  a  rare  privilege  that  I  could 
be  with  you  so  often  at  one  of  those  periods  when  the 
sharpest  impressions  are  taken  from  the  seal  of 
friendship. 

You  would  miss  one  of  your  old  friends,  if  you  were 
to  revisit  Nahant  this  summer.     I  was  visiting  my 


220  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

poor  friend  Dr.  Clarke,  eight  or  ten  days  ago,  when 

he  said  to  me,  "  Dr. 's  father  is  dead."  "  Dr. 

's  father"  was  our  old  friend .  Whether 

he  left  any  intimates  outside  of  his  family  to  mourn 

for  him  I  do  not  know.  H I said  he  should 

miss  him  much.  I  had  a  certain  pleasure  in  contact 
with  his  hard,  recalcitrant  intelligence.  His  mind 
grew  tough  and  knobby,  like  an  oak  that  did  not  know 
how  to  stretch  up  and  spread  out  kindly,  broadly, 
straight-grained.  I  asked  your  dear  Mary  once  why 

T D was  not  more  of  a  general  favorite, 

having  so  many  things  to  recommend  him,  and  I  have 
always  thought  her  answer,  that  it  was  because  he 
had  no  abandon,  was  the  truth  of  the  matter.  I  hope 
his  better  qualities  —  for  he  had  sterling  ones  —  will 
germinate  in  the  heavenly  latitudes  like  those  grains  of 
Egyptian  wheat  which  were  buried  with  the  Pharaohs 
and  bear  their  fruit  for  the  Khedive. 

You  may  be  sure  that  I  copied  every  word  you  said 
about  Dana  and  sent  it  to  him.  He  was  greatly 
pleased  with  your  remembrance,  and  with  what  you 
had  said.  Dick  stands  it  well  —  in  fact  it  made  quite 
a  great  man  of  him.  He  has  gone  off  at  the  head  of 
our  delegation,  and  makes  a  fine  figure  in  his  halo  of 
martyrdom. 

I  am  glad  you  breathed  a  little  life  into  my  waning 
patriotism.  I  have  got  so  sickened  with  this  tearing 
down  of  political  caterpillars'  nests  that  if  I  did  not 
know  that  there  are  worse  social  contrivances,  and  that 
this  is  a  more  or  less  wicked  world  wherever  one  goes, 
I  should  be  in  danger  of  becoming  half  a  traitor  to 
the  theory  of  self-government.  Corruption,  incendi 
arism,  and  child-murder  and  torture  have  been  the 
staple  of  our  newspapers  since  the  Brooklyn  scandal 


TO  JOHN  LOTHKOP  MOTLEY         221 

has  ceased  to  darken  the  horizon  for  a  while.  This 
morning  we  had  a  great  dynamite  explosion  at  Jersey 
City,  close  to  New  York.  That  is  the  Devil's  last  in 
vention,  and  I  have  a  shuddering  fear,  which  I  keep 
to  myself,  that  it  is  to  be* — with  the  torch  —  the 
great  ally  of  communism.  But  we  grow  timid  as  we 
grow  older,  and  the  young  generation  is  not  to  be 
scared  with  our  bugbears. 

We  have  had  three  new  Boston  books,  since  I  have 
written,  I  think.  Ticknor's  Life,  and  Letters,  emi 
nently  readable,  much  sought  for ;  a  new  life  of  Hamil 
ton  by  my  wife's  nephew,  J.  T.  Morse,  Jr. ;  and  within 
a  few  days  Tom  Appleton's  Nile  Journal,  which  I 
find  very  pleasant  and  lively,  much  more  like  his  talk 
than  the  other  little  book.  I  dined  with  Longfellow 
at  Mr.  Fields' s  the  other  evening.  He  seemed  pretty 
well,  but  still  complains  somewhat,  Lowell  was  at 
my  house  the  other  day  —  he  has  been  complaining, 
but  is  now  better. 

Do  not  forget  my  kind  remembrances  to  your  chil 
dren.  My  wife  will  not  let  me  close  this  letter  with 
out  her  postscript  of  kind  remembrance. 


March  14, 1877. 

MY  DEAR  MOTLEY,  —  I  should  have  acknowledged 
and  thanked  you  for  your  letter  of  the  30th  of  Janu 
ary  but  for  many  unusual  distractions.  I  cannot  and 
I  need  not  tell  you  what  singular  enjoyment  I  had 
in  reading  that  letter.  It  is  too  good  a  letter  —  too 
striking  a  one,  for  any  particulier  to  receive  and  ap 
propriate.  The  account  of  your  daughter's  wedding 
was  like  a  passage  from  a  stately  drama.  It  was  — 
is,  I  ought  to  say  —  enough  to  thrill  any  American 


222  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

to  his  marrow  to  read  of  those  whom  he  has  known  so 
long  and  well  among  the  common  scenes  of  our  not 
over-poetical  existence  enacting  one  of  the  great  scenes 
of  this  mortal  life  in  the  midst  of  such  shadows,  tread 
ing  over  such  dust,  in  an  atmosphere  of  historic  im 
mortality.  I  lived  the  scene  all  over,  and  I  do 
sincerely  pity  the  New  England  Major  or  the  Western 
Congressman  who  has  not  enough  of  imagination  and 
reverence  for  the  past  to  be  kindled  into  something 
like  poetical  enthusiasm,  as  much  as  Johnson  would 
pity  the  man  whose  patriotism  did  not  grow  strong  at 
Marathon,  or  whose  piety  did  not  warm  among  the 
ruins  of  lona.  Oh,  this  shallow  soil  of  memory,  on 
which  we  live !  We  scratch  it,  and  we  find  —  what  ? 
the  Indian's  shell-heaps  and  stone  arrow-heads,  over 
laid  by  a  couple  of  centuries  of  half -starved  civilization. 
Don't  be  disgusted  and  outraged,  as  a  patriotic  Ameri 
can.  I  am  patriotic  and  provincial  to  my  fingers' 
ends,  —  but  I  do  sometimes  feel  that,  aesthetically 
speaking,  America  is  after  all  a  penal  colony.  It 
would  be  worth  a  year  of  my  life  (if  I  had  a  good 
many  to  spare  one  from)  to  walk  once  more  under 
the  high,  groined  arches  of  Westminster  Abbey.  I 
never  expect  to  see  England  or  Europe  again,  but  it 
is  something  to  say  I  have  lived  and  looked  upon 
Alps,  cathedrals,  and  the  greatest  works  of  the  great 
est  artists.  .  .  . 


IV.    TO  HARRIET   BEECHER  STOWE 

November  17,  1867. 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  STOWE,  —  I  cannot  thank  you  too 
heartily  for  your  very  kind  and  frank  letter.  Do  you 
know  how  much  I  value  your  opinion,  and  your  good 
opinion  ?  I  will  answer  my  question  and  say  that  you 
do  not,  and  cannot,  know ;  for  it  is  not  only  in  virtue 
of  natural  gifts  that  it  means  so  much  to  me,  but 
because  you  have  had  some  of  those  experiences  which 
perhaps  too  often  betray  themselves  in  my  writings, 
that  I  always  feel  that  you  understand  as  very  few 
can. 

Your  kind  womanly  words  affect  me  more  grate 
fully  perhaps  on  account  of  the  stinging  phrases 
which  have  been  made  for  me  by  a  writer  in  The 
Nation,  whose  aim  from  the  first  seems  to  have  been 
to  wound  if  possible,  to  injure  at  any  rate.  I  suppose 
I  know  who  he  is,  and  only  wonder  how  he  came  to 
take  me  for  his  souffre-douleur  ;  but  I  suppose  he  must 
have  somebody  to  show  his  smartness  on,  and  I  may 
have  directly  or  indirectly  offended  him.  I  would 
give  five  cents  to  know  how,  for  his  accidental  posi 
tion  enables  him  to  reach  many  of  my  friends.  He 
has  done  his  best  to  anticipate  my  story,  to  cheapen 
me,  and  make  me  of  no  account,  —  and  if  I  cannot 
endure  it  I  deserve  it  all. 

But,  my  dear  lady,  I  listen  to  all  you  say  with  such 
confidence  in  your  tenderness,  your  truthfulness,  your 
judgment,  that  I  have  hardly  any  word  to  reply,  ex- 


224  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

cept  to  thank  you  with  all  my  heart  for  the  interest 
you  show  in  me  and  what  I  write. 

Yes,  I  must  say  one  or  two  things.  First,  I  have 
no  doubt  that  I  show  the  effects  of  a  training  often  at 
variance  with  all  my  human  instincts,  —  not  so  much 
from  the  lips  of  my  dear  parents,  in  both  of  whom 
nature  never  allowed  "Grace"  to  lead  them  to  any 
inhuman  conclusions,  —  but  from  outside  influences, 
against  which  my  immature  intelligence  had  to  protest, 
with  more  or  less  injury  to  its  balance,  very  probably, 
always  after.  I  suppose  all  I  write  may  show  some 
thing  of  this,  as  the  lame  child  limps  at  every  step,  as 
the  crooked  back  shows  through  every  garment.  My 
nature  is  not  embittered  against  my  fellow-creatures 
—  on  the  contrary,  I  find  it  hard  to  hate  those  who 
entreat  me  despitef ully  —  for  any  length  of  time,  cer 
tainly.  But  I  am  subject  to  strong  fits  of  antagonism 
whenever  I  come  across  that  spirit  of  unbelief  in  God 
and  strong  faith  in  the  Devil  which  seems  to  me  not 
extinct  among  us.  I  know  this  will  keep  repeating 
itself  in  my  writings.  Some  say  it  is  wicked,  for 
[that]  it  is  true  that  there  is  to  be  a  great  atheistic 
world  over  which  the  Devil  is  to  rule  forever,  and 
where  mankind  (a  few  people  who  understood  "  the 
scheme  "  —  see  N.  Adams's  sermon  on  Choate  —  ex- 
cepted)  are  to  live  always  hereafter.  Some  say  it  is 
foolish,  for  these  notions  are  obsolete.  But,  wicked  or 
foolish,  that  is  my  limp.  The  wound  heals,  the  scar 
is  left.  But  do  you  know  (how  much  it  means  !)  even 
scars  tend  to  grow  less  and  less  with  the  lapse  of 
time  ?  So  I  think  the  stain  of  my  boyhood  may  wear 
off  in  some  degree  by  intercourse  with  sweet  and 
straight  and  wholesome  natures,  whose  nurses  never 
let  them  fall,  as  they  are  wont  to  say  of  the  poor 
hunchbacks. 


TO   HARRIET  BEECHER   STOWE  225 

I  bow  meekly  to  all  your  criticisms  except  the 
Dante  paragraph.  I  believe  I  did  not  go  to  one  of 
the  "  Inferno  "  seances,  one  or  two  of  "  Purgatorio," 
the  others  all  "  Paradiso."  How  often  I  have  said, 
talking  with  Lowell,  almost  the  same  things  you  say 
about  the  hideousness,  the  savagery,  of  that  mediae 
val  nightmare  !  Theodore  of  Abyssinia  ought  to  sleep 
with  it  under  his  pillow,  as  Alexander  slept  with  the 
Iliad.  You  cannot  use  too  strong  language.  What 
could  be  expected  of  a  Christianity  that  has  filtered 
through  such  a  mass  of  cruel  and  wicked  human  con 
ceptions,  but  the  barbarisms  which  hanged  our  grand 
mothers  in  1692,  and  which  to-day  —  ? 

Just  where  I  made  that  mark  my  son  came  in  with 
a  message  from  Mrs.  Gibbons  (Mr.  Hopper's  daugh 
ter,  the  Quaker,  you  know  her),  thanking  me  espe 
cially  for  my  story,  most  particularly  for  Rev.  J.  B.  S., 
and  offering  her  testimony  to  the  truthfulness  of  the 
character.  Pardon  me  the  freedom  of  this  letter,  — 
you  have  a  master-key  that  opens  so  many  hearts  ! 

Don't  think  that  I  do  not  love  dear  old  Dr.  Watts 
with  his  tender  songs  that  lulled  me  when  I  was  a 
baby  (how  exquisite  that  "  Peace,  my  darling,  here  's 
no  danger !  "),  and  will  mingle  I  doubt  not  with  my 
last  wandering  thoughts.  But  how  utterly  good  men 
and  women  have  sometimes  lost  their  human  bearings 
on  that  cold  and  cruel  sea,  the  floor  of  which  is  strewed 
with  dead  theologies ! 

VOL.  n. 


226  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

May  29, 1869. 

MY  DEAE  MRS.  STOWE,  — 

They  plunge  a  chronometer  into  a  steam-boiler  and 
an  ice-chest,  they  turn  it  this  way  and  that  way,  and 
in  time  they  get  its  balance-wheel  to  run  true  in  all 
temperatures  and  positions.  I  think  one  of  your  un 
counted  experiences  I  have  shared  with  you.  I  have 
been  in  the  doctrinal  boiler  at  Andover,  and  the  ra 
tional  ice-chest  at  Cambridge.  I  have  been  hung  with 
my  head  downwards,  from  the  hook  of  a  theological 
dogma,  and  set  on  my  feet  again  by  the  hand  of  unin 
spired  common-sense.  —  I  have  found  myself  like  a 
nursery-tree,  growing  up  with  labels  of  this  and  that 
article  of  faith  wired  to  my  limbs.  The  labels  have 
dropped  off,  but  the  wires  are  only  buried  in  my  flesh, 
which  has  grown  over  them.  The  curse  of  ages  of 
incompetent,  nay,  inhuman  thinking,  filtered  through 
the  brains  of  holy  men  and  the  blood  of  tender-hearted 
women,  but  still  acting  like  a  poison  to  minds  of  a  cer 
tain  quality  and  temper,  fell  upon  me  when  only  the 
most  thoroughly  human  influences  should  have  helped 
me  to  bud  and  flower.  I  do  not  say  you  have  been 
through  all  this,  —  I  do  not  want  you  to  say  you  have, 
—  you  are  my  confessor,  but  I  am  not  yours,  except 
so  far  as  with  all  the  world  I  listen  to  your  voluntary 
revelations  arid  guess  the  history  that  lies  beneath 
them. 

Yet,  I  say  we  have  had  some  experiences  in  com 
mon,  and  however  imperfectly  I  express  myself  by 
word  or  by  letter,  now  or  at  any  time,  there  are  mental 
and  emotional  states  which  you  can  understand  as  none 
can  do  who  have  not  been  through  the  chronometer 
experience. 


TO  HARRIET   BEECHER   STOWE  227 

I  am  getting  tired  of  words,  —  which  makes  me 
feel  sure  there  must  be  a  future  in  which  states  or 
conditions  will  be  immediately,  intuitively,  communi 
cable.  Indeed,  is  there  not  something  like  it  now? 
When  I  write  to  you,  I  know  I  shall  not  say  what  I 
want  to ;  but  I  shall  signify  it,  and  I  shall  not  take 
the  trouble  to  look  over  what  I  said,  just  as  it  came, 
trusting  to  your  interpretation. 

What  higher  compliment  can  I  pay  to  the  story 
that  has  so  profoundly  interested  Mrs.  Holmes  and 
myself,  than  by  throwing  open  the  folding-doors  of 
my  heart  in  this  careless  way  to  you,  as  I  am  doing ! 
It  is  your  own  fault.  You  have  yourself  become  an 
intimate  through  these  fictitious  realities  you  have 
made  a  part  of  our  consciousness.  It  is  no  longer  a 
question  of  exact  agreement  in  this  or  that  belief.  I 
may  not  accept  next  year  the  article  of  faith  which  I 
hold  to-day.  My  belief  in  health  may  be  one  thing, 
and  in  sickness  another;  in  one  mood  I  may  be  all 
belief  and  trust,  in  another,  all  doubt  and  despond 
ency,  —  I  say,  may  be,  —  not  that  I  am  much  given 
to  these  alternations.  But  I  know  that  you  will  re 
main  always  thoroughly  and  entirely  womanly,  chari 
table,  hopeful;  and  what  a  preacher  you  have  been 
and  are  of  the  real  good  tidings  which  have  been 
so  often  misinterpreted! 

I  read  your  story  not  only  for  its  narrative,  its 
characters,  and  its  thought,  but  with  my  critical  eye 
open,  and  noticed  a  point  or  two  which  may  possibly 
be  worth  looking  at. 

Your  books,  being  immortal,  must  be  purged  from 
every  earthly  stain.  So  you  will  pardon  my  minute 
criticisms. 


228  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

With  the  warmest  thanks  from  Mrs.  Holmes  and 
myself,  to  both  of  whom  you  have  endeared  yourself 
by  your  noble  writings, 

I  am  always  your  friend. 


September  25,  1869. 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  STOWE,  —  I  have  been  meaning 
to  write  to  you  for  some  time,  but  in  the  midst  of  all 
the  wild  and  irrelevant  talk  about  the  article  in  The 
Atlantic,  I  felt  as  if  there  was  little  to  say  until  the 
first  fury  of  the  storm  had  blown  over.  I  think  we 
all  perceive  now  that  the  battle  is  not  to  be  fought 
here,  but  in  England.  I  have  listened  to  a  good 
deal  of  talk,  always  taking  your  side  in  a  quiet  way, 
backed  very  heartily  on  one  occasion  by  Mr.  Henry 
James,  Senior,  —  reading  all  that  came  in  my  way, 
and  watching  the  course  of  opinion.  And  first  it  was 
to  be  expected  that  the  Guiccioli  [family  ?] ,  and  the 
model-artists,  and  the  cancan  dancers  would  resent 
any  attack  on  Lord  Byron,  and  would  highly  relish 
the  opportunity  of  abusing  one  who,  like  [you],  had 
long  been  identified  with  all  those  moral  enterprises 
which,  by  elevating  the  standard  of  humanity  at  large 
and  of  womanhood  in  particular,  tend  to  render  their 
callings  unprofitable  and  their  tastes  unpopular. 
After  this  scum  had  worked  itself  off,  must  almost 
necessarily  follow  a  controversy,  more  or  less  sharp 
and  bitter,  but  not  depending  essentially  on  abuse. 
The  first  point  the  recusants  got  hold  of  was  the  error 
of  the  two  years,  which  contrived  to  run  the  gauntlet 
of  so  many  pairs  of  eyes.  Some  of  them  were  made 
happy  by  mouthing  and  shaking  this  between  their 
teeth,  as  a  poodle  tears  round  with  a  glove.  This  did 


TO  HARRIET   BEECHER   STOWE  229 

not  last  long,  —  no  sensible  person  could  believe  for  a 
moment  you  were  mistaken  in  the  essential  character 
of  a  statement,  every  word  of  which  would  fall  on  the 
ear  of  a  listening  friend  like  a  drop  of  melted  lead, 
and  burn  its  scar  deep  into  the  memory.  That  Lady 
Byron  believed,  and  told  you,  the  story  will  not  be 
questioned  by  any  but  fools  and  malignants.  Whether 
her  belief  was  well  founded,  there  may  be  positive  evi 
dence  in  existence  to  show  affirmatively.  The  fact 
that  her  statement  is  not  peremptorily  contradicted 
by  those  most  likely  to  be  acquainted  with  the  facts 
of  the  case  is  the  one  result,  so  far,  which  is  forcing 
itself  into  unwilling  recognition.  I  have  seen  nothing 
in  the  various  hypotheses  brought  forward  which  did 
not  to  me  involve  a  greater  improbability  than  the 
presumption  of  guilt.  Take  that,  for  instance,  that 
Byron  accused  himself,  through  a  spirit  of  perverse 
vanity,  of  crimes  he  had  not  committed.  How  pre 
posterous  [that]  he  would  stain  the  name  of  a  sister 
whom,  on  the  supposition  of  his  innocence,  he  loved 
with  angelic  ardor  as  well  as  purity,  by  associating  it 
with  such  an  inf  andous  accusation ! 

Suppose  there  are  some  anomalies  hard  to  explain 
in  Lady  Byron's  conduct ;  could  a  young  and  guileless 
woman,  in  the  hands  of  such  a  man,  be  expected  to 
act  in  any  given  way,  or  would  she  not  be  like  to 
waver,  to  doubt,  to  hope,  to  contradict  herself  in  the 
anomalous  position  in  which,  without  experience,  she 
found  herself  ?  As  to  the  intrinsic  evidence  contained 
in  the  poem,  I  think  it  confirms  rather  than  contra 
dicts  the  hypotheses  of  guilt.  I  do  not  think  that 
Butler's  argument,  and  all  the  other  attempts  at  in 
validation  of  the  story,  avail  much  in  the  face  of  the 
acknowledged  fact  that  it  was  told  to  various  compe- 


230  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

tent  and  honest  witnesses,  and  remains  without  a  satis 
factory  answer  from  those  most  interested. 

I  know  your  firm  self-reliance  and  your  courage  to 
proclaim  the  truth,  when  any  good  end  is  to  be  served 
by  it.  It  is  to  be  expected  that  public  opinion  will 
be  more  or  less  divided  as  to  the  expediency  of  this 
revelation.  There  is  one  argument  which  will  come 
forward  more  and  more  as  tempers  cool  down ; 
namely,  that  the  true  character  of  a  man,  who  has 
diabolized  the  literature  of  his  century  and  hung  his 
pure  and  injured  wife  in  chains  to  dangle  before  all 
the  unborn  ribalds  of  coming  generations,  ought  to  be 
known  in  his  true  character  to  posterity. 

Hoping  that  you  have  recovered  from  your  indis 
position, 

Faithfully  yours. 

September  25,  1871. 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  STOWE,  —  I  occupied  a  great  part 
of  my  Sunday  (yesterday)  in  reading  your  story, 
which  I  had  just  received  with  the  author's  compli 
ments.  Let  me  thank  you  first  for  the  book,  and 
secondly  for  the  great  pleasure  I  have  had  from  it. 
Would  you  believe  that  to  this  day  I  do  not  read 
novels  on  Sunday,  at  least  until  "  after  sundown  "  ? 
And  this  not  as  a  matter  of  duty  or  religion, , —  for  I 
hold  the  sabbatical  view  of  the  first  day  of  the  week 
as  a  pious  fraud  of  the  most  transparent  description, 
—  but  as  a  tribute  to  the  holy  superstitions  of  more 
innocent  years,  before  I  began  to  ask  my  dear  good 
father  those  enfant  terrible  questions  which  were  so 
much  harder  to  answer  than  anything  he  found  in 
St.  Cyprian  and  Turretin  and  the  other  old  books  I 
knew  the  smell  of  so  well,  and  can  see  now,  standing 
in  their  old  places. 


TO  HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  231 

Well,  I  cannot  feel  as  if  I  were  wicked  to  read  one 
of  your  books,  no  matter  what,  on  a  Sunday.  Be 
sides,  you  promised  this  was  not  to  be  a  novel,  in  your 
preface.  To  be  honest,  that  was  the  last  page  of  the 
book  I  read,  but  on  general  principles  I  should  read 
anything  of  yours,  a  farce  even,  if  you  should  write 
one,  "  between  meetings,"  —  (not  that  I  go  afternoons, 
but  I  do  go  mornings). 

Who  knows  the  New  England  man  and  woman  as 
you  do?  Who  writes  to  their  needs  and  to  their 
hearts  as  you  have  written  and  write  ?  You  have 
belief  enough  for  the  Christian  world,  and  charity 
enough  for  that  great  and  growing  class  who  await 
the  future  with  their  hands  folded  on  their  breasts 
and  their  lips  closed,  caught  as  they  are  at  the  turn 
ing  of  the  tide,  when  many  old  beliefs  are  impossible 
and  the  new  faith  is  but  half  formed. 

This  new  story  of  yours  is  very  keen  —  some  will 
say  cruelly  sharp,  perhaps  —  but  I  am  afraid  it  tells 
the  truth.  I  think  we  had  more  than  one  "  Lillie 
Ellis  "  even  among  those  "  who,  born  in  Boston,  need 
no  second  birth."  I  got  to  hate  her  so,  I  wished  she 
would  die,  and  thought  she  would,  and  that  John 
would  marry  Rose  ;  but  you  have  a  woman's  heart  and 
could  not  give  up  the  poor  sinner. 

Do  you  know  that  when  I  see  the  tenderness  of 
you  sweet  kind  women,  I  can  understand  Theodore 
Parker's  insisting  on  the  maternal  element  in  the 
Divine  Being?  I  think  the  most  encouraging  hint 
with  reference  to  the  future  of  these  helpless  infants, 
whom  we  call  men  and  women,  is  that  He  who  made 
the  heart  of  a  mother  would  find  it  hard  to  quite  give 
up  a  child.  You  see,  now,  I  should  have  smitten 
Lillie  and  her  offspring  and  have  done  with  the  bad 
lot,  You  women  are  all  Universalists. 


232  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

I  will  tell  you  here  what  I  was  told  the  other  day 
of  my  own  dearest  mother  —  wife  of  the  Reverend, 
etc.,  member  of  a  good  Orthodox  church,  who  taught 
me  the  Assembly's  Catechism :  "  Well,  Mary  [to  an 
old  friend  and  servant],  I  don't  know  but  I  am  as 
good  an  Universalist  as  any  of  you."  This  is  only 
for  you,  —  I  never  told  it  before. 

There  is  nothing  in  this  note  I  have  not  said  to  you 
before  about  the  hold  you  have  on  my  feelings  — 
most  peculiar  and  exceptional,  really  perhaps  shared 
to  the  same  extent  in  the  same  way  by  no  other  per 
son.  I  read  all  your  books  with  tears  in  my  eyes. 
"  She,  too,  is  the  New  England  elm  with  the  iron 
band  welded  round  it  when  it  was  a  sapling  !  But 
how  she  has  grown  in  spite  of  it !  " 

March  31, 1872. 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  STOWE,  — 

Well,  I  have  myself  comforted  a  good  many  people 
in  my  time.  I  have  not  been  a  great  moral  reformer, 
like  yourself.  My  readers  have  been  units  where  yours 
have  been  hundreds  if  not  thousands.  But  I  have 
stuck  by  humanity  after  my  poor  fashion,  and  have 
been  told  by  a  great  many  people  in  a  great  many 
places  that  they  were  better  and  happier  for  my  hav 
ing  lived.  That  helps  me  to  bear  the  hard  words, 
which  may  be  as  necessary  to  help  us  digest  our  moral 
food  as  stones  and  gravel  are  to  some  birds  with  their 
other  nourishment. 

Lastly,  I  thank  you  for  your  frank  criticism  and 
advice,  against  which  —  for  a  wonder,  now,  is  n't 
it  ?  —  I  have  not  a  single  word  of  any  kind  to  say, 
either  of  denial,  or  of  justification,  or  of  palliation. 


TO   HARRIET  BEECHEK   STOWE  233 

I  don't  doubt  you  are  quite  right,  and  that  I  have 
fallen  too  much  into  the  way  of  thinking  and  feeling 
which  you  so  fairly  called  my  attention  to  as  partial 
and  one-sided,  and  becoming  false  in  virtue  of  new 
conditions.  I  shall  not  forget  your  criticisms.  I 
have  my  doubts,  as  I  look  at  what  I  have  written, 
whether  I  should  have  offended  you  in  the  sequel  of 
my  story,  if  story  you  can  call  it,  even  if  you  had 
not  written  ;  but  I  am  very  thankful  to  you  for  your 
delicate  and  sufficiently  distinct  hint. 

I  wonder  how  you  can  write  so  much  as  you  do.  I 
don't  know  how  it  would  be  if  I  had  not  something 
more  than  a  hundred  lectures  to  give  every  year;  but 
I  often  feel  ashamed  when  I  see  what  others  can  ac 
complish.  Bigger  brains,  and  more  blood  in  them, 
I  suspect.  Anything  but  utter  self-condemnation, 
organization,  old  age,  stupidity.  What  a  blessing  if 
one  could  be  told  in  the  next  world :  "  Mortal,  you 
thought  you  had  five  talents;  you  had  but  one,  my 
poor  child ! "  But  what  an  immense  capacity  for 
work  there  is  in  your  family !  I  believe  you  could 
have  run  Noah's  ark  —  which  must  have  been  a  hard 
hotel  to  keep  —  among  you.  Pardon  me  for  my 
vivacity  —  of  a  Sunday,  too  !  —  but  I  have  been  to 
"  meeting." 

February  19,  1875. 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  STOWE,  —  "  Better  late  than 
never,"  say  you.  "  Better  half  a  loaf  than  no  bread," 
said  I,  when  I  got  the  first  instalment  of  your  most 
welcome  letter.  By  and  by  came  the  other  half,  —  as 
I  felt  sure  it  would,  and  so  possessed  my  soul  in 
patience.  In  the  mean  time,  it  was  not  very  hard  to 
guess  whence  it  came,  for  I  had  the  handwriting  to 


234  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

guide  me,  and  I  out  with  my  little  pocket-lens,  and 
identified  yourself  and  Dr.  Stowe  in  less  than  no 
time.  The  photograph  was  pasted  over  the  name  of 
the  place  and  the  date,  but  I  managed  just  now  to  get 
the  corners  up,  and  found  that  the  letter  was  dated 
January  26th. 

It  gave  me  real  pleasure.  It  is  so  hard  to  make  it 
palpable  to  one's  self  that  he  is  remembered  by  any  who 
have  lost  sight  of  him  for  any  time,  and  especially  that 
any  words  one  has  written  have  still  a  value !  I  have 
been  losing  so  many  friends  lately  that  I  prize  more 
and  more  every  day  the  tokens  of  kind  feelings  from 
those  who  are  left.  Agassiz,  with  whom  I  have  been  so 
long  intimate,  Sumner,  of  whom  I  have  seen  a  good  deal 
in  these  last  years,  Wyman,  whom  I  greatly  delighted 
in,  though  I  did  not  meet  him  very  often,  and  recently 
my  dear  and  early  friend,  Mrs.  Lothrop  Motley, — 
these  losses  have  sadly  impoverished  my  outer  life. 
You  are  of  a  far  more  expansive  nature  than  I  am, 
I  suspect,  and  can  make  new  friends  more  easily 
than  I  do.  Women  glide  into  each  other's  confidence 
and  assimilate  to  each  other,  I  think,  more  easily  than 
men,  a  great  deal.  Men  are  out-of-door  and  office 
animals ;  women  are  indoor  creatures  essentially,  and 
so  come  together  more  naturally  and  entirely  than 
their  husbands  and  others  of  the  male  sort.  I  make 
a  new  acquaintance  not  rarely,  but  as  for  new  friends 
in  the  full  sense  of  the  word,  after  a  certain  age  it 
seems  almost  like  these  stories  one  reads  of  octogena 
rians  cutting  a  third  set  of  teeth,  and  I  hardly  think 
of  such  a  thing. 

After  all,  if  a  man  will  look  into  the  circumstances 
that  make  him  what  he  is,  or  help  to,  he  will  be  able 
to  account  for  himself  much  more  nearly  than  he 


TO   HARRIET   BEECHER   STOWE  235 

might  at  first  have  thought  possible.  You  think  I 
am  wedded  to  the  pavement.  True,  but  I  am  also 
passionately  fond  of  the  country,  only  I  am  so  liable 
to  suffer  from  asthma  when  I  get  off  the  brick  side 
walk  that  I  am  virtually  imprisoned,  except  when  I 
can  arrange  my  conditions  in  the  most  favorable  way, 
in  a  place  that  happens  to  agree  with  me ;  and  of  the 
various  places  where  I  have  been  of  late  years  in 
summer  —  Newport,  Nahant,  Princeton,  only  one,  Mr. 
Brewer's  house  at  Newport,  has  agreed  with  me.  So 
about  visiting :  I  find  that  a  cold  draught  of  air,  a 
late  supper,  bad  air,  and  perhaps  I  might  add  any 
thing  of  any  kind  that  fatigues  —  say  rather  bores  me, 
sets  me  all  wrong,  and  wastes  health  and  spirits  for 
nothing.  Few  people  enjoy  better  health  than  I  do 
just  so  long  as  I  am  let  alone  and  regulate  my  own 
habits ;  but  when  others  want  me  to  wear  their  shoes, 
how  they  do  chafe  and  pinch !  I  think,  if  I  am  unso 
cial,  it  is  quite  as  much  by  constitution  as  it  is  by 
any  want  of  the  social  instinct,  and  I  have  learned 
to  judge  others  very  charitably  in  the  study  of  my 
own  weakness. 

One  pleasure  I  have  enjoyed  largely,  not  nearly  — 
not  a  tenth  part  —  as  largely  as  you  must  have  enjoyed 
it  —  but  still  more  than  I  ever  expected  to.  It  is  the 
words  of  commendation,  of  confidence,  of  affection 
and  gratitude  even,  that  I  receive  from  many  whom  I 
have  never  seen  and  never  expect  to  see.  I  did  not 
mean  to  speak  of  your  letter  in  this  connection,  but 
do  let  me  say  how  it  touched  me  to  think  of  my  poor 
dead  Elsie  living  her  shadowy  life  over  again  in  your 
consciousness.  I  have  received  some  very  interesting 
letters  lately  from  young  persons,  men  and  women, 
single  and  married,  in  this  country  and  in  England, 


236  OLIVER   WENDELL  HOLMES 

that  spoke  out  so  naturally  and  simply  what  was  in 
their  hearts,  that  I  felt  so  pleased  and  so  humble  — 
for  what  humbles  one  like  the  praise  which  makes 
him  think  what  he  might  perhaps  have  been  and 
done  ?  at  any  rate,  what  others  have  been  and  done 
—  that  I  loved  myself  for  my  humility,  until  all  at 
once  I  found  I  was  getting  vain  beyond  endurance  on 
the  strength  of  it.  I  think  we  could  compare  many 
experiences  of  correspondence  with  unknown  friends. 
I  feel  as  if  you  must  have  been  the  depositary  of  an 
infinite  number  of  confidences,  and  even  I  myself  have 
had  so  many  that  I  have  been  amazed,  and  almost 
overwhelmed  sometimes,  at  finding  what  a  web  of  fine 
filaments  I  had  spun  from  my  thinking  glands,  that 
radiated  all  round  me  like  the  spokes  of  a  spider's 
wheel. 

Some  of  these  correspondents  have  literary  aspira 
tions,  and  these  very  soon  betray  themselves,  generally 
before  they  get  to  the  fatal  postscript  informing  you 
that  they  have  a  manuscript  novel,  or  that  they  wish 
to  send  you  some  unpublished  poem  —  lucky  if  they 
do  not  enclose  a  few  specimens !  Some  have  troubles, 
and  want  sympathy;  some  have  perplexities,  and 
want  advice  ;  some  ask  strange  questions  about  their 
love-affairs  (as,  May  I  marry  an  own  cousin?  etc.). 
Some  have  religious  doubts  and  questions.  Some 
have  the  oddest  requests.  I  answered  one  this  week 
from  Texas  from  a  young  lady  who  wanted  to  come 
North  and  defray  her  expenses  by  selling  mocking 
birds  and  other  cage-birds.  Many  —  poor  things !  — • 
want  to  get  money  for  translations  or  literary  work 
of  some  kind  for  the  magazines.  But  of  late  my  let 
ters  have  been  mostly  simple  expressions  of  interest 
in  various  writings  of  mine,  especially  the  Breakfast- 


TO   HARRIET   BEECHER   STOWE  237 

Table  Series.  I  always  answer  all  of  them,  which 
shows  that,  after  all,  their  number  must  be  limited ; 
but  it  takes  a  good  deal  of  time,  as  it  is.  Nobody's 
autographs  will,  I  think,  be  cheaper  than  mine,  if 
anybody  should  ever  want  such,  by  and  by,  for  I  am 
very  good-natured  about  sending  them  even  to  the 
wretches  that  do  not  enclose  a  stamped  envelope  with 
the  blank  for  my  name. 

You  are  pleased  to  ask  me  two  or  three  questions, 
which  I  am  more  pleased  to  answer.  The  "  experi 
ments  at  Greylock,"  about  which  you  inquire,  were 
not  related  to  me  by  a  Cambridge  Professor,  but 
by  Professor  Alonzo  Clark,  of  New  York,  who  was  at 
Williams  College  close  by  the  mountain,  as  you  know. 
He  it  was  who  told  me  of  the  woman  bringing  the 
"  rattlers  "  to  him  in  her  apron,  which  story  you  find 
transferred  to  my  true  narrative.  As  for  the  experi 
ments  of  Dr.  Hering  at  Surinam,  I  only  remember 
vaguely  some  notice  of  them  in  one  of  the  journals, 
but  I  am  wholly  unable  at  the  present  moment  to  give 
an  exact  reference  to  them. 

I  have  just  written,  to  come  out,  probably,  in  the 
April  Atlantic,  a  long  article,  which  I  want  to  call 
"  Moral  Automatism,"  and  may  call  so,  although  taken 
strictly,  the  two  words  contradict  each  other.  In  this 
I  notice  at  some  [length]  an  extraordinary  work  pub 
lished  a  few  years  ago,  M.  Prosper  Despine's  Psy- 
chologie  Naturelle.  You  do  not  know  what  a  favor 
you  have  just  done  me.  For,  taking  down  my  story 
from  the  shelves  to  look  out  the  points  you  refer  to,  I 
read  the  Doctor's  letter  in  reply  to  Bernard  Lang- 
don's  inquiries,  and  I  confess  I  was  astonished  to 
see  how  far  I  had  anticipated  the  general  aim  of  M. 
Despine's  book,  and  in  fact  much  that  I  have  said 
in  another  form  on  the  subject  fifteen  years  ago. 


238  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

The  more  I  study  the  facts  of  life,  the  more  I  am 
convinced  that  the  Oriental  anthropology,  which  we 
have  so  long  accepted,  as  we  once  did  the  Oriental 
cosmogony,  does  not  correspond  with  the  realities  of 
human  nature.  I  am  contented  still  with  my  old 

image,  which  Dr.  B l  mildly  attacked  me  for,  if 

I  remember  right,  of  the  drop  of  water  in  the  crystal, 
as  representing  will  imprisoned  in  personal  conditions 
and  outward  circumstance  ;  the  farther  removed  I  am 
from  the  possibility  of  entertaining  for  a  moment  the 
idea  that  Man  is  responsible  for  the  disorders  of  the 
world  in  which  he  finds  himself,  the  more  I  pity  him 
for  his  suffering,  the  less  I  wonder  at  his  "  sin." 
This  I  suppose  is  an  organic  heresy  running  in  my 
maternal  blood,  and  driving  my  inherited  Connecticut 
theology  out  of  me  at  every  pore.  But  it  is  a  heresy 
which  I  believe  will  in  due  time  supersede  that  con 
fused  system  of  half -beliefs,  which  calls  itself  Ortho 
doxy,  —  a  bird  of  sable  aspect,  which  is  constantly 
smoothing  its  oily  plumage,  but  which  has  lost  more 
feathers  than  it  can  spare  of  late  years.  (You  will 
not  mind  this,  will  you?  I  think  you  have  a  very 
large  heart  for  all  honest  confessions  of  faith.)  .  .  . 

What  sweet  visions  your  Florida  picture  raises  ; 
oh,  had  I  the  wings  of  a  dove  !  Well,  I  enjoyed  your 
letter  almost  like  a  visit.  With  kindest  remem 
brances  to  you  all, 

I  am  always  truly  yours. 

March  3,  1876. 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  STOWE,  —  How  could  you  have 

given  me  greater  pleasure  than  by  asking  me  to  copy 

the  verses  which  I  enclose  ?     I  shall  set  this  request 

by  the  side  of  a  reminiscence  very  dear  to  me.     A 

1  Apparently  BushnelL 


TO   HARRIET   BEECHER   STOWE  239 

cousin  of  my  wife  —  Miss  Sally  Gardiner,  —  older 
than  myself,  unmarried,  fastidious,  a  lover  of  Emer 
son's  writings,  a  good  and  delicately  organized  woman, 
on  whose  gravestone  I  read  "  She  loved  much,"  once 
said  to  me  or  one  of  my  friends  that  there  was  a  poem 
of  mine  she  often  read  the  last  thing  at  night,  —  as 
children  say  "  Now  I  lay  me."  This  was  "  The  Cham 
bered  Nautilus."  You  have  given  me  the  one  memory 
to  store  with  that.  How  grateful  we  ought  to  be  for 
our  better  moments,  that  lift  infirmer  natures,  for  the 
time  at  least,  to  the  level  of  those  whom  they  admire 
and  reverence ! 

Your  letters  always  touch  me,  but  I  hardly  know 
how  to  answer  them  without  following  their  own  sug 
gestions.  And  this  last  falls  in  remarkably  with  many 
of  my  own  thoughts  during  the  past  year.  Out  of 
our  Saturday  Club  we  have  lost  Sumner  and  Howe. 
I  paid  my  small  tribute  to  both,  —  that  to  Howe  will 
be  in  the  April  Atlantic.  Last  summer,  as  I  may 
have  told  you,  I  was  in  daily  relations  for  some  weeks 
with  Motley,  who  is  still  in  the  valley  of  the  shadow 
of  death,  the  death  of  one  whose  life  was  dearer  to 
him  than  his  own.  He  himself  was  in  shattered  and 
precarious  health,  and  to  be  with  him  was  to  read 
very  deep  into  the  human  soul  in  its  sincerest  reali 
ties.  What  yearning  there  is  in  tender  natures,  knit 
ted  in  with  the  life  of  others,  often  nobler  and  purer 
than  themselves,  for  that  unquestioning  child-like  be 
lief  which  is  so  largely  a  divine  gift,  and  for  which 
many  pray  without  ever  reaching  it !  If  God  will 
make  such  good  women  as  he  does  every  day,  he  must 
not  quarrel  with  his  poor  creatures  for  making  too  much 
of  his  earthly  manifestations.  The  Catholics  idealize 
and  idolize  a  bambino,  a  virgin,  a  saint ;  and  is  not 


240  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

a  living  fellow-creature,  full  of  all  that  we  conceive 
makes  an  angelic,  one  might  say  divine,  character, 
more  naturally  and  easily  made  an  idol  —  eidolon  — 
image,  to  a  common  imagination,  than  a  stuffed  doll, 
or  a  picture,  or  an  abstraction  ?  Father,  mother,  wife, 
sister,  daughter,  —  if  these  do  not  furnish  me  the  ele 
ments  out  of  which  I  put  together  my  poor  limited 
working  conception  of  the  Divine,  I  know  not  where 
to  look  for  them.  It  is  not  by  a  parcel  of  adjectives 
without  nouns,  multiplied  by  the  sign  of  infinity,  that 
I  can  get  at  the  conception,  for  which  I  am  to  keep 
all  my  respect  and  affection. 

I  have  only  stammered  out  in  my  own  way  what 
you  have  said  in  simpler  phrase  in  your  letter.  All 
that  you  say  of  the  Infinite  love  and  pity  is  the  very 
substance  of  such  belief  as  I  cherish  in  the  midst  of 
the  doubts  and  difficulties  around  us,  all  which  imper 
atively  demand  new  forms  for  that  universal  and 
undying  sentiment,  without  which  life  is  the  pitiful 
melodrama  which  would  make  us  ashamed  of  its  au 
thor  for  making  anything  above  a  vegetable,  —  any 
thing  with  possibilities  of  suffering.  To  you,  I  sup 
pose,  sin  is  the  mystery,  —  to  me  suffering  is.  I  trust 
Love  will  prove  the  solution  of  both.  At  any  rate 
no  atomic  philosophy  can  prevent  my  hoping  that  it 
will  prove  so. 

I  have  another  friend,  whom  I  visit  weekly,  struck 
down  by  chronic  disease  which  threatens  a  fatal  issue, 
and  confined  for  many  months  to  his  bed.  What  ser 
mons  his  bedside  preaches  !  Pity  !  I  feel  as  if  that 
would  be  all  that  would  be  left  of  me,  if  I  live  but 
a  few  years  longer.  Here  is  a  man  at  the  very  head 
of  his  profession,  Dr.  [Edward  H.]  Clarke,  in  full 
business,  trusted,  looked  up  to,  depended  upon  in  an 
extraordinary  degree,  and  all  at  once  a  most  painful, 


TO   HARRIET   BEECHER    STOWE  241 

mysterious,  and  threatening  internal  disease  seizes 
upon  him  as  the  fox  gnawed  into  the  vitals  of  the 
Spartan  boy.  From  the  very  height  of  active,  useful, 
happy  occupation,  he  is  thrust  into  miserable  inaction, 
imprisoned  in  his  chamber,  fettered  to  his  bed,  with 
nothing  but  paroxysms  of  bodily  anguish  to  give  vari 
ety  to  his  existence.  Oh,  if  there  were  but  one  walk 
ing  our  streets  to-day,  who  could  say  to  him,  "  Take 
up  thy  bed,"  and  lift  his  infirmity  from  him  with  a 
look  or  a  word  !  Perhaps  he  might  lose  a  lesson  he 
may  yet  learn  the  meaning  of,  —  certainly  I  should 
lose  a  lesson  which  is  good  for  me  in  many  ways  to 
learn.  But  it  does  seem  very  hard  to  see  such  a  man, 
who  has  healed  so  many  by  his  skill  and  soothed  so 
many  by  his  presence,  tortured  in  this  way  by  a  disease 
as  cruel  as  a  ravenous  beast,  and  that  gives  so  much 
cause  for  fear  of  its  issue.  I  ought  to  say  that  he  takes 
it  all  very  calmly  and  sweetly,  and  that  my  regular 
visit  to  him  is  one  that  I  look  forward  to  with  much 
interest.  I  sometimes  think  I  might  almost  have  a 
vocation  to  visit  the  sick  and  suffering,  were  I  self- 
denying  enough,  which  I  fear  I  am  not.  But  I  do 
have  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  I  have  done 
something  of  late  to  lighten  the  burden  of  others  in 
their  sorrow, — not  much  —  very  little  compared  with 
what  hundreds  of  women  are  doing  all  the  time.  I 
go  and  sit  now  and  then  with  Dr.  [Jacob]  Bigelow, 
Senior,  now  close  upon  ninety  years  old,  stone-blind, 
utterly  helpless,  and  bedridden.  Would  you  believe 
it  ?  He  is  one  of  the  most  cheerful,  lively,  and  seem 
ingly  happy,  or  at  least  serenely  tranquil,  persons  I 
ever  met.  If  all  suffering  and  privation  were  borne 
as  he  and  Dr.  Clarke  bear  theirs,  it  would  be  easier  to 
contemplate  human  existence. 
VOL.  n. 


242  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

Educational  suffering  I  can  to  a  certain  extent  un 
derstand.  But  the  great  solid  mass  of  daily  anguish 
which  the  sun  looks  upon  —  and  looks  away  from,  as 
if  he  could  not  bear  it,  —  antedating  man,  including 
everything  that  has  a  nerve  in  it,  —  that  I  can  do 
nothing  with.  "  Sin,"  or  the  failure  of  an  imperfectly 
made  and  imperfectly  guided  being  to  keep  a  perfect 
law,  seems  to  me  to  be  given  in  the  mere  statement 
of  the  conditions  of  humanity,  and  could  not  be  a  sur 
prise  or  a  disappointment  to  a  Creator  with  reasoning 
powers  no  greater  than  those  of  a  human  being  of 
ordinary  wisdom.  But  I  must  not  weary,  perhaps 
worry,  you  with  my  theological  or  anti-theological 
notions  —  say  rather,  convictions.  Some  time  I  may 
have  the  chance  to  talk  about  these  with  you. 

I  wish  I  could  take  the  wings  of  the  morning  and 
fly  to  the  shade  of  your  orange-trees,  for  a  few  hours  at 
least.  But  I  am  a  fowl  that  keeps  his  roost,  and  my 
wings  are  more  like  those  of  a  penguin  than  of  an  eagle. 

Do  you  want  me  to  send  you  any  of  my  books  ?  If 
you  do,  and  will  tell  me  what  you  should  like,  I  will 
get  Osgood  to  forward  copies  of  them  to  you. 

I  am  afraid  of  the  great  book  you  mentioned  just 
now,  for  I  am  overrun  with  books  I  must  read. 
Besides,  I  lecture  steadily  four  times  a  week,  and  my 
correspondence,  chiefly  with  people  I  do  not  know, 
has  become  very  burdensome,  —  I  suppose  because  I 
am  too  good-natured  and  give  everybody  advice,  and 
thank  everybody  who  says  a  pleasant  word  to  me. 

You  will  read  this  letter  charitably,  I  know ;  it  is 
carelessly  worded,  and  only  hints  many  things  I  could 
talk  better.  I  rarely  have  the  patience  to  write  so  much 
as  this,  and  it  takes  a  woman  to  write  a  real  letter. 

Remember  me  very  kindly  to  Mr.  Stowe. 


TO  HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  243 

May  8,  1876. 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  STOWE,  —  An  "  autograph  letter," 
just  received,  inquires  of  your  whereabouts,  which  I 
have  given  as  Hartford,  where  I  hope  this  scanty 
scroll  may  find  you.  It  is  the  third  time  your  name 
has  been  on  my  inner  lips,  —  those  silent  but  never 
resting  ones,  —  this  morning.  First,  having  got  through 
my  seven  months'  lectures,  and  a  week  of  deferred 
urgencies  which  followed,  I  was  thinking  that  I  would 
write  and  ask  about  you  and  your  husband,  and  so 
perhaps  get  another  of  your  real  letters,  which  always 
make  me  think  more  deeply  and  feel  more  warmly. 
Secondly,  I  was  writing  this  morning  to  an  unknown 
English  correspondent,  a  lady,  who  has  twice  written 
me  very  interesting  letters,  not  the  commonplace  ones 
of  mere  expressions  of  liking  and  all  that,  but  serious, 
though  most  kindly  questionings,  whether  I  had  not 
been  sometimes  too  sharp  in  speaking  of  unmarried 
women,  —  all  which  I  took  to  heart,  as  I  hope  I  do 
every  well -intended  criticism,  especially  if  I  think 
it  may  be  just.  I  told  her,  what  is  true,  that  I  like 
to  face  the  accusing  angel.  The  accusing  and  fault 
finding  devil  is  another  matter ;  but  what  is  there  we 
cannot  bear  if  the  spirit  of  love  is  in  it  ?  Thirdly, 
this  "  autograph  letter,"  with  its  questions,  has  given 
the  slight  tap  which  has  set  me  going  with  this  little 
scrap  of  a  letter. 

I  feel  like  one  awakening  from  a  long  trance,  now 
that  I  have  got  through  my  lectures  at  the  college. 
It  seems  as  if  it  would  take  me  some  weeks  to  stretch 
my  limbs  and  get  them  back  to  their  natural  supple 
ness.  I  suppose  I  have  lectured  about  long  enough, 
—  twenty-nine  years  here  at  our  college,  besides  two 
years  at  Dartmouth.  The  young  generation  is  on  our 


244  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

shoulders  looking  beyond  our  horizon.  Fortunately 
for  me,  there  has  been  no  change  in  human  anatomy 
since  Adam  lost  the  rib  from  his  side,  and  somehow 
or  other  I  always  find  a  full  dozen  on  both  sides  in 
his  male  descendants.  But  when  I  say  there  has  been 
no  change,  I  am  thinking  of  the  grosser  facts  which 
the  unaided  eye  can  detect.  I  have  seen  grow  up, 
under  my  own  view,  a  universe  of  the  lesser  world 
as  wonderful  as  that  which  the  telescope  has  revealed 
in  the  infinite  spaces.  What  a  quaint  comment  one 
might  make  on  that  expression  of  the  Apostle's,  "  see 
ing  through  a  glass  darkly  !  "  So  we  did  fifty  years 
ago,  but  since  that  we  have  put  two  pieces  of  glass 
together,  —  a  piece  of  flint-glass  and  a  piece  of  crown- 
glass,  and  now  we  see  through  our  double  glass 
clearly  —  how  amazingly  clearly ! 

How  could  I  have  written  so  far  without  recurring 
to  your  letter  of  March  8th?  It  touched  me  very 
deeply  when  I  read  it,  and  it  has  troubled  my  eyes  a 
good  deal  in  re-reading.  As  for  Sir  Eobert  Grant's 
hymn,  I  agree  with  you  that  it  is  altogether  lovely, 
and  I  feel  greatly  obliged  to  you  for  taking  the 
trouble  to  make  me  acquainted  with  it,  especially  in 
your  own  handwriting.  Let  me  at  this  time,  instead 
of  trying  to  answer  your  letter  as  it  deserves,  with  the 
best  I  could  find  in  the  depths  of  my  heart,  thank  you 
for  all  its  sweet  and  strengthening  influences,  of  which 
I  could  not  say  more  than  I  feel. 

With  kind  remembrances  to  Mr.  Stowe, 

Always  faithfully  yours. 


TO   HARRIET   BEECHER   STOWE  245 

No  date. 

At  the  end  of  this  letter  —  and  of  every  human  life 
—  write  in  large  capitals,  as  the  merchants  do  at  the 
foot  of  their  accounts,  —  E  E.  [Note  at  the  head  of 
the  letter,  by  the  Doctor.] 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  STOWE,  —  Here  lie  three  different 
letters  begun  in  answer  to  your  own,  and  left  off  as 
unsatisfactory,  as  leaving  loopholes  for  new  ques 
tions,  as  failing  to  express  that  which  I  feel  to  be  the 
root  of  the  matter  in  my  own  convictions.  I  begin  to 
doubt  whether  I  can  convey  my  thoughts  in  a  letter 
as  I  could  in  conversation,  —  no,  not  in  one  conversa 
tion,  but  in  repeated  talks,  such  as  gradually  shape 
out  the  conceptions  and  feelings  of  two  friends,  until 
they  come  to  a  perfect  understanding  at  last  of  their 
bearings  to  each  other  in  certain  regions  of  thought. 
How  well  I  know  all  the  working  and  thinking  for 
mula  of  this  good  companion  of  mine,  from  whom  I 
have  learned  so  much  more  than  she  is  conscious  of 
having  ever  taught  me !  how  well  she  knows  all  my 
mental  movements,  —  how  each  of  us  can  read  life,  as 
it  looks  to  the  other's  eyes !  I  am  afraid  it  is  impos 
sible  fully  to  present  the  intricate  conditions  of  an 
inward  life,  our  sense  of  the  relations  we  sustain  to 
the  Infinite,  except  through  the  inflections  of  speech 
and  those  sudden  surprises  of  our  own  thought,  which 
the  immediate  contact  of  another  intelligence  so  often 
forces  upon  us. 

I  must  try  to  say  a  few  words,  or  I  fear  you  would 
misinterpret  my  silence. 

My  creed,  as  I  said  in  my  book  of  ten  years  ago,  is 
to  be  found  in  the  first  two  words  of  the  Pater  Noster. 
I  know  there  is  a  great  deal  to  shake  it  in  the  natural 


246  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

order  of  things,  but  my  faith  is  strong  enough  to  stand 
against  all  the  untowardness  of  the  blind  elements 
amidst  which  we  are  placed  here,  and  out  of  which 
our  earthly  tabernacles  are  shaped. 

I  see  no  corner  of  the  Universe  which  the  Father 
has  wholly  deserted.  The  forces  of  Nature  bruise 
and  wound  our  bodies,  but  an  artery  no  sooner  bleeds 
than  the  Divine  hand  is  placed  upon  it  to  stay  the 
flow.  A  wound  is  no  sooner  made  than  the  healing 
process  is  set  on  foot.  Pain  reaches  a  certain  point, 
and  insensibility  conies  on,  —  for  fainting  is  the  nat 
ural  anodyne  of  curable  griefs,  as  death  is  the  remedy 
of  those  which  are  intolerable. 

Never,  until  the  idea  of  a  world  without  hope  and 
without  God  —  a  world  where  wounds  did  not  try  to 
heal,  where  habit  did  not  dull  the  sense  of  torture — 
was  introduced  among  men  by  men,  as  you  well  know, 
was  there  any  impossibility  of  recognizing  the  fatherly 
character  of  the  Creator.  If  the  Christian  religion 
is  in  any  degree  responsible  for  this,  you  and  I  must 
change  our  natures  before  we  can  call  it  "good  ti 
dings."  We  cannot  conceive  of  a  Father's  allowing 
so  limited  a  being  as  his  human  child  to  utterly  ruin 
himself.  I  see  the  perplexed  condition  (will  you  for 
give  me  ?)  into  which  this  dogma  has  thrown  your 
brother  Edward,  who  had  to  shape  a  past  destiny  for 
the  race  to  make  it  tolerable,  and  another  brother  of 
yours  whose  inward  conflicts  I  suspect  to  have  been 
more  severe  than  most  of  those  who  know  him  would 
believe.  I  do  not  believe  you  or Jj>§n-J^£J^  *ne 
iron  of  Calvinism  out  of  our  souls,  —  but  see  a  woman 
bred  as  this~ companion"  of  mine  was,  by  a  gentle- 
hearted  father  to  whom  all  such  ideas  were  simply 
shocking,  inadmissible  on  any  legendary  evidence, 


TO   HARRIET   BEECHER    STOWE  247 

unworthy  alike  of  God  and  man,  and  you  will  find  in 
such  a  woman  that  the  great  obstacle  to  the  belief 
in  God  as  a  father  has  never  existed.  To  this  utter 
rejection  of  a  godless  universe,  which  is  to  run  par 
allel  forever  with  a  happy  world  of  dehumanized  in 
telligences,  I  believe  the  leading  souls  of  this  century 
are  pointing  the  belief  of  our  whole  race.  I  say  dehu 
manized  intelligences,  for  if  there  is  anything  human 
left  about  the  spirits  of  just  men  made  perfect  and 
tender  women  turned  to  angels,  they  can  never  be 
quiet  until  they  have  got  a  drop  of  cold  water  to  the 
tongue  of  Dives,  and  colonized  those  children  who, 
according  to  our  old  friend  Michael  Wigglesworth, 
were  assigned  to  "  the  easiest  room  in  Hell."  (How 
strange  to  think  of !  I  knew  here  and  in  Paris  a 
great-great-grandson  of  old  Michael,  yellow-haired, 
light-eyed,  with  the  oddest  of  squints,  whose  face  used 
to  turn  to  a  flame  over  the  Burgundy,  whose  muscles 
were  those  of  a  prize-fighter,  and  whose  worship  of 
more  than  one  of  the  heathen  divinities  in  the  days 
of  his  lusty  youth  was  devout  beyond  all  common 

measure.     Peace  to  the  dust  of  poor !     He  lies 

for  many  a  year  under  the  green  sod  at  Mount  Au 
burn.  Long  sickness  sobered  if  it  did  not  change 
him,  and  a  saintly  woman,  herself  struck  with  blind 
ness,  became  his  wife.  But  in  what  room  of  the  Eter 
nal  Holy  Inquisition  Mansion  would  old  Michael  have 
placed  his  great-great-grandchild?)  (Old  Michael's 
descendants  are  generally  excellent  people.) 

To  me  the  Deity  exists  simply  in  his  human  rela 
tions.  He  is  a  mere  extension  of  what  I  know  in 
humanity.  So  he  must  be  to  every  human  being,  it 
seems  to  me ;  at  least  all  communicable  ideas  of  him, 
»~-  all  but  the  ineffable  contemplations,  which  vision- 


248  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

aries,  as  we  call  them,  and  some  others,  claim  —  are 
obviously  human.  For  no  term  is  applied  to  him 
which  has  not  shaped  itself  out  of  human  experience. 
What  does  "  good  "  mean  but  what  "  Uncle  Cook  " 
who  takes  care  of  the  poor  children,  and  certain 
women  I  know,  show  me  in  their  lives  ?  What  does 
"  Father  "  mean  but  somebody  who  is  bound  to  take 
care  of  you  in  the  exact  ratio  of  his  power  and  know 
ledge  to  your  weakness  and  ignorance,  and  who  will 
do  it,  whether  you  know  enough  to  understand  all  he 
does,  or  have  sense  enough  to  trust  him  implicitly,  or 
not?  Every  man  makes  his  God,  —  the  South-Sea 
islander  makes  him  of  wood,  the  Christian  New  Eng- 
lander  of  ideas.  —  "  No !  the  Bible  makes  him  !  "  But 
a  thousand  different  Gods  have  been  made  out  of  the 
Bible ;  you  might  as  well  say  the  quarry  makes  the 
temple.  —  Michael  Wigglesworth  made  his  frightful 
Deity  out  of  the  Bible.  Cotton  Mather  made  his,  — 
and  would  have  hanged  my  mother  and  yours  to 
please  him.  The  God  of  the  Eomanist  and  the  God 
of  the  Quaker  both  are  got  out  of  the  Bible.  I  have 
got  just  as  far  in  my  creed  as  I  had  ten  years  ago,  — 
namely,  as  far  as  those  first  two  words  of  the  Pater 
Noster.  There  are  difficulties,  I  know  ;  but  it  appears 
to  me  on  the  whole  :  — 

1.  That  the  Deity  must  be  as  good  as  the  best 
conscious  being  he  makes. 

2.  That  it  is  more  consonant  with  our  ideas  of  what 
is  best,  to  suppose  that  suffering,  which  is  often  obvi 
ously  disciplinary  and  benevolent  in  its  aim,  is  to  be 
temporary  rather  than  eternal. 

3.  That  if  the  Deity  expects  the  genuine  love  and 
respect  of  independent,  thinking  creatures,  he  must  in 
the  long  run  treat  them  as  a  good  father  would  treat 
them. 


TO  HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  249 

4.  That  to  suppose  this  world  a  mere  trap,  baited 
with  temptations  of  sense,  which  only  Divine  ingenuity 
could  have  imagined,  with  the  certainty  that  the  larger 
part  of  the  race  would  fall  into  it,  and  that  to  the 
tortures  of  a  very  helpless,  ignorant,  ill-educated  being 
is  to  be  added  the  cruellest  sting  of  all,  that  he  brought 
it  on  himself,  does  not  seem  a  probable  course  of  action 
on  the  part  of  "  Our  Father." 

5.  When  I,  as  an  erring  mortal,  am  confronted  with 
Infinite  purity,  it  appears  to  me  an  absurdity  to  talk 
of  judging  me  by  that  standard. 

God  made  the  sun  too  strong  for  my  eyes  —  but  he 
took  care  to  give  me  eyelids.  He  let  the  burning,  all- 
devouring  oxygen  into  my  system,  but  he  took  care  to 
dilute  it  with  |  of  nitrogen. 

And  a  fellow-creature  tells  me  that  after  this  world, 
where  all  these  provisions  are  made,  where  all  acci 
dents  are  repaired,  or  attempted,  at  least,  to  be 
repaired,  there  is  to  be  another,  where  there  are  eyes 
without  lids,  flame  to  breathe  instead  of  air,  wounds 
that  never  heal,  and  an  army  of  experts  in  torture  in 
the  place  of  that  ever-present  God  whom  I  used  to  call 
"  My  Father !  " 

I  only  say  it  does  not  seem  probable  to  me.  Nehe- 
miah  Adams  seems  to  feel  sure  of  it,  —  but,  thank 
God,  I  can  read  history,  and  when  I  remember  that 
to  doubt  the  horrid  legendary  doctrines  of  witchcraft 
a  century  and  a  half  ago  was  to  be  a  Sadducee,  I  must 
think  that  in  a  century  and  a  half  from  now,  I  hope 
a  good  deal  sooner,  his  writings,  if  read  at  all,  will 
be  read  with  the  same  feelings  we  entertain  to  the 
witchcraft  ravings  of  Cotton  Mather. 

6.  Either  my  moral  nature  will  remain  human  in 
another  life,  or  it  will  be  changed  to  something  not 
human. 


250  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

Edwards  and  others  have  supposed  it  would  be 
changed  to  something  not  human,  for  they  have 
thought  one  of  the  delights  of  the  blessed  would  be 
to  witness  the  just  vengeance  of  the  Almighty  on 
their  late  friends  and  neighbors,  —  to  say  nothing  of 
relatives.  Why  not  a  pleasure  to  accompany  the 
Arch-tormentor  himself  on  his  clinical  visits  to  the 
tormented?  Why  not  love  lies  instead  of  truth  — 
hatred  instead  of  love  —  devils  instead  of  angels  —  if 
our  human  qualities  are  to  belong  to  us  no  more  after 
the  great  change  ?  I  cannot  accept  this  supposition. 
I  am  obliged  to  think  that  I  shall  love  the  same  qual 
ities  in  another  state  that  I  love  in  this.  Can  I  love 
a  father  who  lets  me  ruin  myself  ? 

What  if  I  happen  to  love  another  as  well  as  myself  ? 
Can  I  love  a  being  who  lets  that  other  ruin  himself 
—  (I  mean  go  to  everlasting  torment)  ? 

What  if  I  happen  to  be  so  human  that  I  love  and 
pity  all  my  race,  and  cannot  be  happy  if  they  are  to 
be  writhing  in  agony  forever,  and  nobody  suffered  to 
go  near  them  to  help  or  pity  ?  Can  I  love  the  being 
who  has  arranged  the  universe  so  that  they  shall  come 
to  this  ? 

But  I  must  love  my  Creator,  for  he  is  as  kind  as 
my  father  was,  and  as  tender  as  my  mother  was. 
Otherwise  he  has  made  a  creature  better  than  himself, 
according  to  our  human  definition  of  better,  —  which 
is  contrary  to  all  reason,  as  it  seems  to  me.  How 
absurd  to  declaim  against  the  lawless  passions  of 
Jupiter,  or  the  jealous  rages  of  Juno,  as  sufficiently 
disproving  their  Divinity,  and  then  call  on  mankind 
to  believe  in  a  being  who  has  established  an  almost 
infinite  laboratory,  where  the  vivisections  and  vivi- 
ustions  of  sensitive  organisms  are  to  set  forth  his  glory 


TO  HARRIET  BEECHER   STOWE  251 

forever  to  creatures  that  were  once  men  and  women 
—  men  with  tears  in  their  eyes  —  women  with  milk 
in  their  breasts ! 

I  grant  all  that  can  fairly  be  said  about  the  suffer 
ing  we  see  here  on  earth.  I  should  not  have  expected 
to  find  so  much.  But  I  see  compensation  in  some  form 
trying  to  restore  the  balance ;  I  see  apparent  misery 
solacing  itself  in  unforeseen  ways ;  I  see  habit  render 
ing  tolerable  what  seemed  too  much  to  be  borne ;  I 
see  sleep  with  its  sweet  oblivion,  and  death  with  its 
certain  release  from  the  unfit  tenement  and  its  at 
least  possible  solution  of  every  doubt  and  cure  for 
every  ill.  In  all  this  I  see  nothing  like  Hell.  I 
see  ignorance  and  ill-training  make  men  act  like  de 
mons  ;  to  me  they  are  as  the  insane  and  the  idiots  are. 
Mary  Lamb  was  in  deed  a  murderess,  —  but  she 
might,  after  stabbing  her  mother,  have  plunged  her 
bloody  knife  into  her  own  heart,  and  yet  have  been 
carried  straight  by  pitying  angels  to  the  company  of 
the  blessed. 

Was  there  ever  such  a  prayer  as  that  one :  — 

"Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what 
they  do  !  " 

Your  little  Iroquois  knows  not  what  he  does.  No 
sinner  truly  knows  what  he  does. 

We  do  not  "come  into  the  world  with  a  bias  to 
vice,"  except  relatively  to  society.  Any  bias  we  bring 
into  the  world  comes,  mediately  it  is  true  but  just  as 
really,  from  the  Creator.  A  clear  intelligence,  a  just 
balance  of  bodily,  mental,  and  moral  instincts,  a  wise 
training,  are  a  complete  human  outfit.  Withhold  any 
one  or  more  of  these  conditions,  and  it  shows  itself  in 
a  man's  life,  in  error,  in  excess,  in  sin,  in  vice.  Who 
withheld  it? 


252  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

I  believe  much,  I  dare  not  say  how  much,  of  what 
we  call  "  sin  "  has  no  moral  character  whatever  in  the 
sight  of  the  great  Judge.  I  believe  much  of  what  we 
call  "  vice  "  is  not  only  an  object  of  the  profoundest 
compassion  to  good  men  and  women,  but  that  the 
tenderest  of  God's  mercies  are  in  store  for  many  whom 
the  so-called  justice  of  the  world  condemns. 

More  and  more  I  feel  that  God  is  all  in  all,  that 
the  pride  of  man  has  shown  itself  more  fearfully  in 
his  over-estimate  of  his  own  capacity  for  sin  than  in 
any  other  way.  Do  not  mistake  me  for  what  is  popu 
larly  meant  by  an  "  antinomian."  "  For  every  idle 
word  "  —  yes,  I  am  ready  to  adopt  that  too.  God  lets 
me  move  my  limbs  —  these  he  would  trust  me  with. 
But  he  shut  my  heart  and  my  breathing  organs  and 
all  the  wondrous  mechanism  by  which  I  live,  in  a  cas 
ket  beyond  my  rash  meddling,  of  which  he  keeps  the 
key.  So  I  know  that  he  has  entrusted  me  with  many 
precious  interests  which  I  can  use  well  or  ill ;  but  I 
will  not  believe  that  he  has  ever  trusted  the  immortal 
destiny  of  my  soul  out  of  his  own  hands. 

If  the  doctrine  of  a  world  of  endless  torture  had 
come  in  with  the  Christian  religion,  it  might  have 
been  very  differently  received.  But  men's  minds 
were  familiar  with  it  through  the  fables  of  a  cruel 
mythology.  Prometheus  and  Tantalus  and  Sisyphus, 
the  lower  world  with  its  river  of  fire,  came  out  of 
the  same  imaginations  that  contrived  the  heathenisms 
we  are  in  the  habit  of  denouncing  as  baseless  super 
stitions. 

I  am  satisfied  that  we  shall  never  properly  under 
stand  Christianity  until  we  take  the  exact  inventory  of 
what  was  in  the  world  when  it  came.  I  hope  you  have 
read  the  famous  article  on  the  Talmud  in  the  last  Lan* 


TO   HARRIET   BEECHER   STOWE  253 

don  Quarterly.  We  must  remember  that  our  sacred 
writings  are  simply  legends,  —  that  is,  written  from 
memory  after  the  events  occurred,  sometimes  long 
afterwards.  If  —  and  I  am  afraid  it  is  so  —  Christ 
is  said  to  have  taught,  as  the  heathen  taught  before 
him,  that  there  is  a  universe  of  torture  to  match  the 
universe  of  bliss,  with  a  sovereign  and  an  aristocracy 
of  "  his  angels ;  "  if  he  is  said  to  have  taught  that  the 
greater  part  of  our  race  were  to  become  the  subjects 
of  this  potentate  and  exposed  forever  to  the  brutalities 
of  himself  and  his  crew,  —  then  how  thankful  we 
should  be  to  Strauss,  to  Renan,  to  anybody,  who  will 
add  to  our  doubts  as  to  the  exactness,  the  authenticity, 
the  authority  of  the  legends  on  which  this  belief  re 
poses  !  That  is  the  reason  why  such  a  quiet  statement 
as  that  of  M.  Sainte-Beuve,  quoted  in  one  of  the  last 
Literary  Gazettes,  brings  with  it  a  feeling,  not  of 
simple  horror  that  the  world  is  doubting  its  old  be 
liefs,  but  of  inward  question  whether  the  total  over 
throw  of  the  Godless  Universe,  as  a  counterpart  of 
Heaven  in  the  belief  of  mankind,  would  not  be  as 
great  a  blessing  to  the  race  as  the  rooting  out  of  the 
scriptural  doctrine  of  witchcraft  was  to  the  trembling 
old  women  of  Essex  County  a  hundred  and  fifty  years 
ago. 

I  do  not  think  Nehemiah  Adams's  Universe  is  any 
thing  to  be  grateful  for.  I  do  not  think  his  gospel 
is  "  good  tidings."  I  believe  his  belief  to  be  a  lurid 
reflection  of  old  heathenisms.  Romanism  is  to  me 
infinitely  more  human  than  Calvinism  —  which  when 
I  once  spoke  of  as  "  heart-rending  "  to  a  high-souled 
and  long-suffering  Christian  woman,  she  said  "  heart- 
withering  I " 

Faith !  faith !  faith !     In  what  ?     In  the  character 


254  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

of  my  Maker.  I  cannot  see  the  great  church  of  Chris 
tendom  as  so  many  holy  people  do,  —  I  cannot  worship 
the  Virgin  Mary;  I  cannot  see  "the  scheme"  as 
Nehemiah  Adams  does,  —  seeming  to  think  Mr.  Choate 
was  safe,  if  he  only  comprehended  that.  But  I  do  be 
lieve  that  good  people,  kind  fathers,  kind  mothers,  are 
the  type  of  the  Creator,  and  not  cruel,  jealous,  vindic 
tive  ones.  You  remember  what  Father  Taylor  said  to 
one  of  the  sterner  sort,  —  "  Oh,  I  see !  your  God  is 
my  Devil  I " 

I  will  send  this  note  or  letter  —  it  is  not  what  I 
want  to  send,  but  it  may  give  a  hint  here  and  there. 

Do  I  not  ask  for  light  ?     God  knows  I  do. 


May  17, 1880. 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  STOWE,  —  A  thousand  thanks  for 
all  the  trouble  you  have  taken  to  copy  the  poem.  It 
is  a  beautiful  poem  and  a  precious  autograph.  In  an 
article  published  many  years  ago  in  the  Foreign 
Quarterly  Review,  I  think,  —  its  title  was  "  Hymn- 
nology,"  —  "  Rock  of  Ages  "  was  set  down  as  the  best 
hymn  in  the  English  language.  I  recognize  its  won 
derful  power  and  solemnity.  If  you  asked  me  what 
is  the  secret  of  it,  I  should  say  that  of  all  the  Pro 
testant  hymns  I  remember  it  is  richest  in  material 
imagery.  We  think  in  getting  free  of  Romanism  we 
have  lost  our  love  of  image-worship,  but  I  do  not 
think  so  myself.  Thirty  years  ago  I  remember  seeing 
a  great  gilt  cross  put  on  top  of  the  steeple  of  a  Baptist 
meeting-house  in  Pittsfield,  and  since  that  time  you 
know  how  symbolism  has  come  into  the  Episcopal 
Church  and  overflowed  it  into  the  Congregational  and 
other  denominations. 


TO   HARRIET   BEECHER   STOWE  255 

The  imagination  wants  help,  and  if  it  cannot  get  it 
in  pictures,  statues,  crucifixes,  etc.,  it  will  find  it  in 
words.  That,  I  believe,  is  the  reason  why  "  Rock  of 
Ages  "  impresses  us  more  than  any  other  hymn, —  for 
I  think  it  does.  It  is  the  Protestant  "  Dies  Ira3  "  ! 

"  Quid  sum  miser  tune  dicturus  "  — 
"  Could  my  tears  forever  flow  "  — 

the  utter  helplessness  of  the  soul  and  its  passionate 
appeal  are  common  to  both.  Our  hymn  has  more  of 
hope  and  less  of  terror,  but  it  is  perfectly  solid  with 
material  imagery,  and  that  is  what  most  of  us  must 
have  to  kindle  our  spiritual  exaltation  to  its  highest 
point. 


V.  TO  ELIZABETH  STUART  PHELPS  WARD 

BEVERLY  FARMS,  July  6, 1879. 

MY  DEAR  Miss  PHELPS, —  I  was  very  glad  to  hear 
that  you  reached  your  little  resting-place  comfortably, 
and  I  hope  rest  of  body  and  mind  will  restore  you 
soon.  I  trust  you  will  not  busy  yourself  just  now 
with  the  problem  of  human  existence.  Be  a  vege 
table,  —  a  flower,  I  mean,  of  course,  — taking  nourish 
ment  from  the  earth  via  its  most  nourishing  products, 
and  looking  into  the  sleepy  and  contented  eyes  of  the 
cattle  and  all  creatures  that  live  without  worded 
thought,  —  not  into  those  of  the  worrying  stars  which 
have  no  eyelids,  and  stare  you  into  asking  questions 
they  will  not  answer. 

I  am  getting  to  believe  that  your  first  title  is  quite 
as  good  as  any  that  has  been  since  suggested.  I  don't 
quite  like  the  "  Mustered  In."  In  the  first  place  my 
impression  is  that  Captains  of  war-ships  carry  out 
"sealed  orders,"  while  land-troops  are  said  to  be 
"  mustered  in."  In  the  second  place  I  have  no  great 
liking  for  fancy  titles  unless  they  are  specially  ap 
propriate,  as  was  most  certainly  the  title  "  Gates 
Ajar."  So,  as  at  present  advised,  I  should  say 
Sealed  Orders  and  Stray  Stories, 

or 

Sealed  Orders  and  Other  Stories, 
which  last  is  at  least  inoffensive. 

I  suppose  you  must  have  found  the  change  of 
weather  very  trying.  I  never  experienced  anything 


TO   ELIZABETH   STUAKT  PHELPS  WAKD          257 

like  it  in  my  protracted  existence  —  so  far  as  my  feel 
ings  were  concerned.  I  may  have  known  more 
change  in  the  thermometer,  possibly,  but  here  on  the 
4th  the  heat  was  almost  intolerable,  and  yesterday,  the 
5th,  we  were  thankful  to  have  a  good  winter  fire. 

I  never  feel  well  for  some  little  time  after  coming 
to  the  country,  and  I  am  staying  at  home  from 
"  meet'n,"  —  where  I  like  to  go  and  hear  worthy  Mr. 
Redding,  the  "  Babtist  "  (Novanglice)  preacher,  —  it 
does  me  some  kind  of  good,  I  think.  There  is  a  little 
plant  called  Reverence  in  the  corner  of  my  Soul's 
garden,  which  I  love  to  have  watered  about  once  a 
week. 

Hoping  that  I  shall  have  the  pleasure  of  seeing 
you  some  time  during  the  season,  I  am,  dear  Miss 
Phelps, 

Faithfully  yours. 


BEVEKLT  FABMS,  August  31, 1879. 

MY  DEAR  Miss  PHELPS,  —  It  is  my  turn  now  to 
send  you  my  kindest  regards  and  remembrances  on 
your  reaching  what  you  call  "  the  half-way  house," 
but  which  I  think  of  as  one  of  those  "  arbors  "  where 
Christiana  rested  —  at  least  Christian  did,  as  I  re 
member  ;  and  I  am  sure  the  trees  would  stretch  their 
branches  over  your  head  if  you  sat  down  near  them, 
as  they  did  over  Buddha.  And  this  reminds  me  that 
I  have  been  reading  and  writing  a  long  review  of  one 
of  the  divinest  poems  I  ever  read,  The  Light  of  Asia, 
by  Mr.  Edwin  Arnold.  It  embodies  the  legends  of 
that  wonderful  personage  whose  religion  is  the  most 
prevalent  of  any  on  the  face  of  the  earth  —  so  we 
are  told.  You  may  look  for  my  review  in  the  next 

VOL.  II. 


258  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

number  of  the  International,  and  I  hope  it  will  make 
you  wish  to  read  the  poem. 

I  had  a  great  many  visitors  on  my  birthday  and 
many  letters ;  I  wrote  twenty-two  letters  in  reply 
yesterday.  My  house  was  turned  into  a  bower  of 
roses,  and  everybody  looked  as  pleased  as  possible  to 
recognize  the  fact  that  I  had  at  least  reached  the 
natural  limit  of  human  existence.  Threescore  and 
ten  is  a  different  matter,  however,  since  the  invention 
of  spectacles  and  various  other  contrivances,  which 
in  many  cases  take  away  the  meaning  of  the  words 
"I  have  no  pleasure  in  them." 

I  thank  you  most  cordially  for  your  kind  remem 
brance.  I  hope  life  will  grow  easier  and  sweeter  to 
you  as  you  go  on  your  way,  softening,  sweetening, 
illuminating  it  for  others. 

Believe  me,  dear  Miss  Phelps, 

Faithfully  yours. 


BEVERLY  FARMS,  September  27,  1879. 

MY  DEAR  Miss  PHELPS,  —  I  must  say  a  word 
before  pulling  up  my  tent-pegs  and  pitching  my  tent 
once  more  on  the  shore  of  the  Charles.  I  should 
have  liked  to  pass  an  hour  or  two  with  you  before 
going,  but  I  have  done  almost  no  visiting  out  of  our 
immediate  neighborhood.  Yesterday,  as  a  final  ex 
cursion,  we  went  to  Gloucester,  —  I  did  not  think  of 
it  when  we  started,  —  drove  round  the  town,  looked 
at  the  fire,  or  tried  to,  —  turned  round  and  came 
home. 

My  vacation  is  over,  and  I  only  regret  that  it  has 
not  been  as  idle  as  it  ought  to  have  been.  I  have 
done  a  good  deal  of  reading,  some  studying,  and 


TO   ELIZABETH   STUART   PHELPS  WARD          259 

struggled  with  a  correspondence  which  is  growing 
almost  too  much  for  me.  Among  other  things  I  have 
sat  in  judgment  on  an  epic  written  by  a  celebrated 
professional  man  and  sent  me  by  his  nephew.  It 
came  pretty  near  going  over  the  ground  that  the  old 
school-master,  Mr.  J.  Milton,  treated  in  a  poem  you 
may  have  heard  of.  I  had  to  say  to  his  relative,  who 
wished  to  know  whether  this  posthumous  work  should 
be  published  or  not,  that  he  had  better  keep  the  repu 
tation  he  had  honestly  got  in  another  line  of  labor, 
and  not  enter  into  competition  with  J.  M.  Another 
experience  was  with  a  Western  "  poet,"  who  sent  me 
a  duodecimo  of  some  hundred  pages  of  verse,  and  re 
quested  my  opinion.  I  gave  it  —  not  very  flattering, 
but  civil  and  honest,  as  I  supposed  he  wanted  it  to 
be.  In  due  time  I  received  the  most  impertinent,  in 
fact,  insolent  letter  I  ever  got,  —  with  one  exception, 
many  years  ago,  —  a  similar  return  for  an  honest  criti 
cism  from  another  Western  bard.  And  Horace  was 
a  heathen  sinner  —  was  he  ?  —  for  saying  — 

"  Odi  ignobile  vulgus." 

But  my  summer  has  been  placid,  on  the  whole,  and 
if  my  duties  did  not  call  me  back,  I  might  perhaps 
stay  until  the  leaves  had  fallen. 

I  am  really  sorry  you  should  be  turned  out  of  your 
sea-shell.  There  was  so  much  good  sense  and  good 
taste  in  your  little  arrangements  for  summer  rest, 
that  it  seems  a  pity  you  should  be  disturbed.  You 
have  seen  our  little  place.  It  serves  our  turn  well 
enough,  and  we  are  going  to  keep  it  at  present,  per 
haps  for  years. 

If  I  could  make  you  well,  I  believe  I  would  turn 
doctor  again.  I  hope  that  dear,  good  old  physician 


260  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

who  cures  more  patients  than  all  the  M.  D.'s  —  I 
mean  Time  —  will  make  you  strong  and  hearty  again, 
or  at  least  will  lighten  that  burden  which  makes 
life  hard  to  bear  for  you.  At  least  you  can  look 
back  and  think  of  all  you  have  done  for  others.  I 
believe  if  He  who  made  His  home  with  the  good 
women  of  Bethany  were  walking  our  highways,  yours 
would  be  one  of  the  doors  where  He  would  knock  for 
entrance.  Would  not  that  be  enough? 


BOSTON,  October  29,  1879. 

MY  DEAR  Miss  PHELPS,  —  Many  thanks  for  the 
story-book,  the  title  of  which  you  did  me  the  honor  of 
discussing  with  me.  I  have  read  eleven  of  the  seven 
teen  stories,  and  shall  read  the  others  very  soon ;  but 
I  cannot  wait  any  longer  before  acknowledging  your 
kindness.  Besides,  this  is  an  off  day  —  no  lecture 

—  and  I  have  a  little  leisure  for  my  distant  friends. 
The   stories   I   have  read,  I  have  read  carefully. 

They  all  come  out  of  your  true  woman's  heart,  and 
some  of  them  have  brought  the  tears  out  of  my  eyes 

—  not  the  tears  of  weakness,  for  the  wheel  is  not  yet 
broken  at  the  cistern,  or  the  pitcher  broken  at  the 
fountain. 

Do  you  ask  me  which  I  like  best  of  those  I  have 
read?  Perhaps  I  should  say  "Doherty," —  a  very 
simple  story,  shame,  misery,  ruin,  —  as  it  seems,  — 
but  at  the  last  a  ray  of  Divine  love,  and  a  feeling  in 
the  reader  [such]  as  he  remembers  in  "  Margaret " 
(Faust's)  :  "  She  is  saved  !  " 

The  stories  of  emotional  complications  between 
lovers,  and  between  married  people,  like  "  Running 
the  Risk,"  will  passionately  interest  many  women.  I 


TO   ELIZABETH   STUART  PHELPS   WARD          261 

do  not  think  men  ever  come  to  understand  all  the 
hair-springs,  the  oscillating  machinery,  the  compen 
sation  balances  of  a  woman's  nature  in  a  state  of 
unstable  equilibrium.  There  is  a  kind  of  music  — 
sometimes  it  is  a  strange  discord  —  which  can  be  rej 
solved  to  a  woman's  ear,  but  not  to  a  man.  Indeed, 
there  are  single  tones  a  woman  hears  too  acute  for 
the  masculine  organ  of  hearing.  (You  know  many 
persons  cannot  hear  the  bat's  squeak.) 

I  know  life  shows  itself  to  you  in  some  of  its  most 
saddening  aspects,  but  though  I  am  commonly  busy 
and  cheerful,  I  like  to  sit  down  in  silence  with  you  at 
times,  and  lose  myself  in  tender  sympathies.  I  wish 
that,  with  twice  your  length  of  days,  I  had  done  half 
as  much  to  lighten  the  world's  burdens ! 


BOSTON,  December  10,  1879. 

MY  DEAR  Miss  PHELPS,  —  Your  few  words  are 
more  than  eloquent  —  they  are  precious.  If  the  In 
finite  Love  needs  to  be  pleaded  with  in  behalf  of  its 
own  children,  it  will  be  the  voice  of  a  woman  —  a 
true  woman  —  a  tender-hearted  woman  —  that  reaches 
it  and  is  listened  to.  Need  I  say  more  than  that  I 
thank  you  and  bless  you  for  your  kind  and  sweet 
remembrance  ? 

BOSTON,  May  4,  1888. 

MY  DEAR  Miss  PHELPS,  —  I  have  just  received 
your  kind  letter,  and  I  must  write  you  a  few  words 
about  myself,  knowing  that  you  will  be  pleased  to 
hear  from  me  under  my  new  conditions. 

All  was  gradual  and  gentle  in  the  passing  away  of 
my  dear  wife.  The  last  sad  stage,  which  I  feared,  was 


262  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

spared  her  and  us.  There  was  no  paralysis,  no  help 
lessness,  no  painful  mental  disturbance  ;  that  is,  she 
remained  quiet,  amiable,  docile,  tractable,  comely  in 
aspect,  gracious  in  manner,  cheerful,  easily  pleased, 
until  within  a  few  days  of  the  end,  when  she  grew 
weaker  very  rapidly,  and  presently  left  us  with  that 
sweet  smile  on  her  face  which  the  parting  soul  some 
times  leaves  on  the  features.  To  the  few  who  looked 
upon  it,  it  was  like  a  celestial  vision. 

Forty-five  years  we  lived  most  happily  together. 
Then  came  the  cloud,  —  not  a  sullen  storm-cloud,  but 
a  silvery  one.  Her  illusions  were  pleasant  ones,  — 
she  enjoyed  living,  was  interested  in  all  around  her, 
and  oftentimes  seemed  to  be  with  the  dead  whom  she 
had  loved  just  as  if  they  were  living,  in  the  most  nat 
ural  and  simple  way. 

We  were  fortunate  in  finding  a  companion  for  her, 
—  a  widow  lady  of  intelligence  and  amiable  disposi 
tion,  to  whom  she  soon  became  attached.  If  you  had 
happened  to  call  at  almost  any  time  before  the  last 
week,  I  should  have  carried  you  into  the  parlor  and 
said,  "Amelia,  here  is  our  friend  Miss  Phelps,"  and 
you  would  have  left  her  after  a  few  moments,  hardly 
realizing  that  she  was  the  subject  of  any  mental  in 
firmity,  she  looked  and  spoke  and  smiled  so  like  her 
self  as  you  must  remember  her. 

I  have  every  cause  to  be  grateful  that,  after  so 
many  happy  years,  when  the  inevitable  came,  it  was 
so  mercifully  ordered. 

My  daughter,  Mrs.  Turner  Sargent,  has  come  to 
live  with  me,  and  we  are  necessarily  hard  at  work 
arranging  our  new  household.  It  was  her  own  pro 
posal  to  come,  and  she  lets  her  own  beautiful  house 
(59  Beacon  Street),  to  which  she  was  greatly  at- 


TO    ELIZABETH    STUART   PHELP8   WARD          263 

tached.  But  she  is  a  very  cheerful  woman,  and 
accommodates  herself  admirably  to  our  new  condi 
tions.  We  keep  the  place  at  Beverly  Farms  which 
we  had  last  year,  and  where  I  hope  I  shall  see  you. 
I  am  glad  my  little  book  pleased  you. 

This  letter  is  all  about  my  own  experiences.  I 
hope  when  you  write  you  will  fill  your  letter  with 
yours.  I  have  never  got  over  your  story  of  "  Jack." 
It  is  a  great  story. 

BOSTON,  April  13,  1889. 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  WARD,  —  I  thank  you  for  your 
very  kind  and  sympathetic  letter.  The  loss  of  my 
daughter  is  a  heavy  blow  and  a  great  disappointment. 
We  had  made  out  a  very  pleasant  programme  for  our 
joint  lives,  had  learned  to  know,  to  love,  and  to  justly 
value  each  other  in  the  relation  of  father  and  daugh 
ter,  and  were  full  of  hope,  when  her  summons  came. 
It  came  as  did  that  of  her  mother,  very  gently.  Some 
weeks  of  suffering  there  were,  made  almost  happy  to 
her  by  the  kindness  of  more  friends  than  she  could 
have  believed  would  have  so  tenderly  remembered  her. 
Then  came  a  change,  which  looked  like  an  approach 
to  recovery.  Bodily  ease,  restored  appetite,  improve 
ment  in  pulse,  easy  respiration,  the  delight  of  return 
ing  life,  rekindled  hope ;  she  and  all  of  us  could  not 
help  hoping  and  almost  believing  that  she  was  to  be 
with  us  again,  active,  joyous,  giving  and  receiving 
pleasure  among  her  numerous  friends. 

Dis  aliter  visum.  In  the  midst  of  this  apparent 
improvement  she  had  a  sudden  convulsion,  followed 
by  insensibility  and  coma,  in  the  deep  slumber  of 
which  she  breathed  her  life  peacefully  away. 

I  am  not  left  alone.     My  daughter-in-law,  a  very 


264  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

helpful,  hopeful,  powerful  as  well  as  brilliant  woman, 
is  with  me,  and  my  household  goes  on  smoothly,  and 
not  without  a  cheerful  aspect.  Her  husband  the 
Judge  will  soon  be  established  in  the  house,  and  I 
trust  we  shall  live  as  happily  as  we  ought  to,  if  my 
large  allowance  of  years  should  be  a  little  farther  ex 
tended. 

Pray  come  and  see  me,  and  bring  Mr.  Ward  with 
you,  the  next  time  you  are  in  town.  We  shall,  both 
Mrs.  Holmes  and  myself,  —  for  the  Judge  is  a  good 
deal  away  from  home,  —  be  most  happy  to  see  you. 

With  kindest  regards  to  Mr.  Ward,  I  am,  dear 
Mrs.  Ward, 

Affectionately  yours. 


Sunday  Afternoon,  May  31,  1891. 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  WARD,  —  One  who  is  very  dear  to 
me  said  to  me  yesterday :  "  I  want  you  to  read  Mrs. 
Ward's  story,  4  The  Bell  of  St.  Basil.'  "  And  so  I 
have  just  been  reading  it.  Not  for  the  first  time, 
though.  I  remember  well  that  I  read  it  in  a  previous 
volume,  and  that  it  produced  a  deep  impression  on  me. 
But  how  deep  it  would  be  on  this  second  reading  I 
did  not  suspect.  I  may  as  well  confess  that  the  pathos 
of  your  story  quite  overcame  me.  I  did  not  know  I 
had  so  many  tears  in  my  emotional  fountains.  Either 
I  have  come  to  the  "  streams  of  dotage,"  or  that  is 
one  of  the  most  touching  stories  that  even  your  tear- 
compelling  imagination  ever  gave  birth  to.  —  No  mat 
ter  !  Marlborough  was  ten  years  younger  than  I  am 
when  he  died ;  and  Swift  died  four  years  younger  than 
I  now  am,  after  having  been  "  a  driveller  and  a  show  " 
for  I  don't  remember  how  many  years.  So  I  think  it 


TO   ELIZABETH  STUART  PHELP8  WARD          265 

is  not  my  imbecility,  but  your  command  of  the  springs 
of  sensibility,  which  is  to  blame  for  my  exhibition 
of  weakness.  Of  course  the  "  exhibition  "  was  all  to 
myself,  thank  heaven,  for  I  would  not  show  myself  in 
such  a  moment  of  weakness  if  every  tear  were  to  be 
turned  into  a  pearl. 

It  did  me  good  to  have  a  good,  long  cry.  I  was 
happy  to  find  myself,  as  old  books  have  it,  "  dissolved 
in  floods  of  tears."  When  we  ought  to  cry,  we  don't. 
When  we  want  to  cry,  we  can't.  In  the  mean  time 
the  internal  cisterns  are  filling  up  ready  to  burst. 
What  a  relief  when  —  from  an  apparently  totally  in 
sufficient  cause  —  a  woman's  fanciful  relation  of  some 
thing  that  never  happened ;  a  picture  of  some  people 
that  never  lived,  in  a  place  not  to  be  found  in  the 
Gazetteer  —  all  at  once  something  gives  way,  and 
down  comes  the  freshet,  with  such  a  sense  of  sweet, 
delicious,  stingless  sorrow  and  sympathy,  and  withal 
of  our  own  loveableness  for  being  so  tender-hearted, 
that  it  seems  as  if 

"Angels  alone  that  soar  above  " 

were  fit  company  for  such  amiable  creatures  as  we 
feel  ourselves. 

I  could  not  help  writing  on  the  spot,  while  the  im 
pression  of  your  story  was  still  tingling  all  through 
me.  The  ink  on  the  first  page  of  this  note  and  the 
tears  on  my  cheeks  dried  at  the  same  moment. 

I  thank  you,  then,  for  all  these  most  welcome  and 
most  wholesome  tears,  and  for  all  the  sweet  and  en 
nobling  influences  which  I,  with  so  many  others,  have 
felt  from  your  admirable  writings. 

With  kindest  regards  to  Mr.  Ward  and  yourself, 
I  am 

Always  faithfully  yours. 


266  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

BEVERLY  FARMS,  July  5,  1893. 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  WARD,  —  I  am  glad  that  any  sea 
son  can  induce  you  to  let  me  have  a  letter  from  you, 
—  a  luxury  I  have  not  had  for  a  good  while.  As  for 
me,  you  see  I  have  come  to  a  card  and  a  ready-stamped 
envelope.  My  secretary  is  among  the  mountains. 
My  eyes  are  getting  dimmer,  and  my  fingers  have 
taken  to  cramps,  so  I  am  making  everything  as  simple 
as  possible. 

Nothing  would  delight  me  more  than  to  talk  over 
time  and  eternity  with  you  and  your  husband,  but  as 
to  saying  anything  on  these  subjects  to  be  reported,  I 
would  as  soon  send  a  piece  of  my  spinal  marrow  to 
one  of  those  omnivorous  editors.  I  may  very  possibly 
dictate  to  my  secretary  some  of  my  notions  on  such 
matters,  but  I  am  disposed  to  keep  out  of  the  market 
place  and  bide  my  time  for  talking.  Perhaps  I  may 
not  think  it  worth  while  to  express  myself  with  abso 
lute  freedom  on  the  deepest  question.  It  is  obvious 
to  me  that  the  order  of  things  is  adjusted  on  a  basis 
which  is  to  last  for  a  good  while,  and  afford  a  staging 
for  good  men  and  women,  and  even  for  some  whom 
we  might  call  great  men  and  women,  to  be  useful  in 
their  day  and  generation.  You  may  find  my  philo 
sophy  in  this  regard  in  a  poem  of  mine  called  "  The 
Organ  -  Blower."  Wherever  you  are,  you  see  the 
handle  of  the  organ-bellows ;  take  hold  and  blow  — 
the  Lord  will  play  the  tune  as  He  pleases. 

So  you  see  I  am  quite  obstinate,  not  to  be  lured,  or 
Jfaclured.  But  I  want  to  see  you  and  talk  with  you, 
and,  above  all,  listen  to  you  and  know  how  you  feel 
with  reference  to  certain  great  problems.  I  would  be 
at  home  almost  any  afternoon  that  you  and  your 
husband  would  honor  me  with  a  call. 


TO   ELIZABETH   STUART   PHELPS   WARD          267 
BOSTON,  September  29,  1893. 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  WARD,  —  My  visit  to  Gloucester 
was  the  most  delightful  incident  of  my  summer.  The 
weather  was  perfect,  and  I  enjoyed  the  long  drive  very 
much.  When  I  got  to  your  new  place  and  looked 
around  me,  I  was  enchanted.  It  is  a  most  remarkable 
and  a  most  lovely  prospect  you  have  before  you  and 
all  round  you.  Your  home  is  an  ideal,  so  truly  real 
ized  that  I  had  to  rub  my  eyes  to  know  whether  I  was 
dreaming  or  awake,  —  looking  at  a  true  landscape  or 
reading  a  story-book.  The  hour  I  was  with  you 
passed  so  quickly  that  I  was  taken  by  surprise  when 
I  was  told  that  my  driver  was  at  the  door.  There 
are  many  things  I  should  like  to  have  said,  many 
questions  I  should  like  to  have  asked ;  but  they  will 
keep,  and  you  will  drop  in  on  me  some  day,  and  we 
will  finish  —  or  rather  continue  —  our  talk. 

I  am  glad  to  be  back,  for  I  find  myself  much  better 
in  town  than  in  the  harsh  Beverly  winds.  I  come 
back,  however,  to  all  sorts  of  lesser  cares  and  bothers, 
—  letters,  letters,  letters,  callers  who  do  not  know 
when  to  go,  books  asking  to  be  read  and  criticised, 
and  the  accumulation  of  literary  stuff  of  all  sorts  that 
has  piled  itself  up  during  my  absence  from  town. 
However,  I  can  see  tolerably,  and  I  have  a  new  gas 
illuminating  contrivance  which  gives  me  a  wonderful 
bright  and  steady  light  to  read  and  write  by.  The 
"  writer's  cramp,"  which  troubles  me  from  time  to 
time,  does  not  affect  me  at  all  to-day,  as  my  hand 
writing  shows  you. 

I  am  interested  in  many  things,  —  most  of  all  in  the 
Congress  of  all  Religions.  I  want  to  get  the  full 
record  of  that  —  not  that  I  think  it  will  amount  to 
much  directly ;  but  in  its  indirect  influence  upon  the 


268  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

Christian  Church,  which  has  attempted  to  confiscate 
every  advance  of  humanity  to  be  its  own  private 
property,  it  may  be  useful.  I  am  sure  such  an  influ 
ence  is  needed.  The  hideous  inhumanity  which  prac 
tically  takes  away  all  hope  for  the  great  majority  of 
the  human  race  may  find  itself  put  to  shame  by  the 
gentle  faiths  of  more  enlightened,  less  brutally  the- 
ologized-ecclesiastized  peoples.  I  really  look  on  that 
Congress  as  the  longest  stride  towards  the  Millennium 
that  I  have  seen,  or  am  like  to  see  if  I  last  till  the 

[illegible]. 

You  and  your  husband  look  very  happy,  and  no 
doubt  are  so,  now  that  the  yacht  is  laid  up.  But 
what  a  romance  it  is !  You  looking  out  for  the 
returning  sail  —  he  driving  in  before  the  blast  —  two 
hearts,  one  leaping  landward,  one  seaward!  Long 
may  peace  and  happiness  be  with  you  both. 
Always  affectionately  yours, 

OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES. 


VI.   MISCELLANEOUS   LETTERS 

TO   JAMES  FREEMAN  CLARKE. 

May  11,  1836. 

DEAR  JAMES,  —  Since  I  have  been  home,  I  have 
repeatedly  inquired  after  you,  and  heard  of  you  at 
other  times  without  asking.  Everything  which  I 
heard  was  exceedingly  gratifying  to  me,  —  not  merely 
because  you  were  my  classmate  and  friend,  but  be 
cause  in  your  success  I  saw  my  own  prophecies  ful 
filled,  and  because  the  favorable  opinion  which  you 
always  seemed  to  entertain  of  myself  carried  with  it 
a  value  in  proportion  somewhat  to  the  rate  at  which 
I  found  your  own  abilities  were  estimated  by  others. 
But  although  I  have  never  forgotten  the  praises  and 
encouragements  you  sometimes  used  to  give  me,  and 
which,  with  their  very  words  and  circumstances,  I 
believe  I  have  recalled  more  often  and  more  faithfully 
than  any  others  I  have  received,  I  should  have  been 
by  no  means  certain  that  all  these  little  recollections 
had  not  passed  from  your  mind,  as  the  opera  airs 
which  we  hear  for  a  week  or  two  give  place  to  some 
other  novelty.  I  was  surprised  and  delighted  to  find 
that,  after  an  absence  and  silence  of  nearly  three 
years,  you  could  still  recognize  and  be  pleased  with  a 
little  sketch  which  I  claim  as  mine  with  far  greater 
pleasure  than  I  ever  expected  to,  when  I  gave 
the  poor  "  Grisette  "  to  the  pages  of  the  American 
Monthly.  Like  everything  tolerable  I  ever  wrote,  it 


270  OLIVEK   WENDELL   HOLMES 

was  conceived  in  exultation  and  brought  forth  with 
pain  and  labor.  The  time  at  which  any  new  thought 
strikes  me  is  my  Sibylline  moment,  but  the  act  of 
composition,  so  exciting  and  so  easy  to  some  people, 
is  a  wearing  business,  attended  with  a  dull,  disagree 
able  sensation  about  the  forehead,  —  only  from  time 
to  time  it  is  interrupted  by  the  simultaneous  descent 
of  some  group  of  words  or  some  unexpected  image, 
which  produces  a  burst  of  the  most  insane  enthusiasm 
and  self-gratulation,  during  which  I  commit  puerile 
excesses  of  language  and  action.  As  I  am  determined 
to  make  you  understand  this,  I  will  give  you  an  in 
stance  or  two,  —  marking  the  lines  which  came  in  this 
sudden  way  and  occasioned  a  paroxysm,  —  in  a  little 
piece  called  "  The  Last  Reader,"  one  of  four  which  I 
have  published  since  my  return :  — 

They  lie  upon  iny  pathway  bleak, 
Those  flowers  that  once  ran  wild, 

As  on  a  father's  careworn  cheek 
The  ringlets  of  his  child. 

And  in  another  part  of  the  same :  — 

What  care  I  though  the  dust  is  spread 

Around  these  yellow  leaves, 
Or  o'er  them  his  sarcastic  thread 

Oblivion's  insect  weaves. 

The  little  piece  from  which  I  take  these  lines  did 
not  seem  to  be  as  popular  as  the  "  Grisette,"  though 
more  elaborate  and.  as  I  supposed  at  the  time,  better. 
My  pet  expression  in  the  two  last  quoted  lines  was 
changed  by  the  New  York  editor  on  his  own  responsi 
bility  into :  — 

Or  o'er  them  his  corroding  thread  — 

which  occasioned  immense  indignation  on  my  part, 
and  a  refusal  to  write  until  he  would  promise  to  keep 


MISCELLANEOUS   LETTERS  271 

hands  off.  The  four  things  which  I  said  I  had  written 
were  all  published  in  the  American  Monthly,  and 
were  as  follows  :  some  "  Lines  written  at  Sea "  (a 
Smith-like  title  for  one's  verses),  beginning,  — 

If  sometimes  in  the  dark  blue  eye 
Or  in  the  deep  red  wine. 

After  this  a  patriotic  affair,  called  "  Our  Yankee 
Girls ;  "  then  "  The  Last  Keader,"  and  last  of  all 
the  one  which  pleased  you, "  La  Grisette."  I  had 
not  written  a  stanza  while  abroad,  and  I  felt  on  first 
sitting  down  as  if  the  power  of  writing  had  passed 
away  as  completely  as  poor  Zerah  Colburn's  talent  for 
calculation,  and  left  me  high  and  dry  upon  the  sand, 
my  sails  and  pennons  all  flapping  in  the  wind  —  my 
keel  wedged  into  the  solid  shore  of  fact  —  and  with 
no  hope  of  ever  bounding  again  over  the  billows  of 
poetry.  So  it  was,  however,  that,  after  writing  one  or 
two  of  these  pieces,  particularly  "  Our  Yankee  Girls  " 
and  "  The  Last  Keader,"  I  thought  them  remarkably 
good  —  at  least  for  me,  and  was  in  hopes  other  people 
would  think  so.  But  several  of  my  friends  seemed 
to  think  I  had  fallen  off,  —  and  one  in  particular, 
who  always  professed  a  great  liking  for  my  verses, 
stopped  me  one  day  to  tell  me  that  the  "  Grisette" 
was  poor  stuff,  —  namby-pamby,  "  such  as  young  Buck 
ingham  used  to  write."  This  troubled  me  somewhat 
—  I  supposed  I  was  running  to  seed  —  and  when  I 
found  one  of  my  offspring  altered  and  mutilated  in 
the  magazine,  where  it  was  published,  it  settled  the 
matter,  and  I  determined  not  to  write  any  more  at 
present.  Some  time  since  I  was  appointed  <1>  B  K  poet 
for  the  coming  anniversary,  and,  as  I  accepted,  this 
occupation  will  be  enough  to  keep  me  quiet.  You 


272  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

would  suppose  from  what  I  have  said  that  I  have 
been  thinking  a  great  deal  about  poetry ;  it  is  not 
true,  —  perhaps  there  is  no  one  among  the  young  men 
who  has  been  more  ardently  engaged  in  medicine  than 
I  have  for  the  last  three  years.  And  on  this  account 
I  determined  to  publish  whatever  I  did  anonymously, 
that  nobody  might  suppose  I  was  ambitious  of  being 
considered  a  regular  scribbler.  If  you  ask  me  then 
what  I  am  thinking  about,  I  will  answer  you  —  Medi 
cine  —  which  finds  me  regular  occupation  —  which 
can  support  me  and  give  me  a  hold  on  the  community 
in  which  I  live,  and  which  my  love  of  observation  and 
the  habits  which  I  have  formed  for  the  last  few  years 
have  rendered  to  me  the  most  delightful  of  employ 
ments.  Thus  I  have  answered  one  or  two  of  your 
questions,  and  prattled  something  too  wildly  about 
myself.  But  your  very  kind  letter  so  soothed  and 
pleased  my  perturbed  spirit  that  I  could  not  help  fall 
ing  into  this  ecstasy  of  egotism.  Write  again,  and 
give  me  an  account  of  yourself  and  your  situation, 
and  the  next  time  I  send  a  letter  to  Louisville  it  shall 
be  filled  with  something  else  besides  my  own  insignifi 
cant  history. 


TO   JAMES   FREEMAN   CLAKKEo1 

March  17,  1838. 

MY  DEAR  JAMES,  —  The  fates  have  sent  a  triple- 
headed  Cerberus,  or  hydra,  this  week  in  the  shape  of 
three  special  requests  for  verses.  I  have  seriously 

1  Mr.  Clarke  had  requested  Dr.  Holmes  to  give  him  something 
to  print  in  The  Western  Messenger,  a  monthly  magazine  of  which 
he  was  editor.  This  poem  (The  Parting  Word)  was  printed  in 
the  May  number,  1838. 


MISCELLANEOUS   LETTERS  273 

reflected  on  each  and  all,  and  come  to  the  conclusion 
to  repel  two  of  my  petitioners,  —  one  by  a  churlish 
silence  and  the  other  by  an  unctuous  or  rather  sapo 
naceous  refusal,  and  to  dispose  of  the  third  —  that  is 
yourself  —  by  sending  such  a  specimen  of  fancy  work 
as  shall  prevent  you  from  too  rashly  repeating  the  re 
quest.  If  it  were  necessary  now  to  sit  down  and  card 
and  spin  and  weave  a  brand-new  lyric,  I  should  plead 
utter  incapacity.  In  my  humble  notion  poetry  is  to 
one's  mind  what  inflorescence  is  to  plants  —  a  sudden 
and  occasional  manifestation  of  bright  colors  —  the 
exhalation  of  an  unwonted  sweetness  —  which  require 
certain  influences  and  naturally  appear  only  at  cer 
tain  intervals.  I  am  sure  that  three  or  four  days 
ago,  when  the  air  suddenly  put  on  its  summer  soft 
ness  and  clearness,  I  felt  that  my  buds  began  to  ex 
pand,  and  I  believe  I  should  have  leaved  out  charm 
ingly,  had  not  the  nipping  frost  of  two  or  three 
habitual  bores  fallen  upon  the  embryo  petals  and 
corollas.  Dis  aliter  visum.  The  week  which  is  just 
extricating  its  caudal  extremity  from  the  narrow 
crack  which  we  call  the  present  —  (here  intervened  a 
visit  to  Salem  to  see  a  nephew,  very  ill  —  and  I  re 
sume)  —  has  been  full  of  troubles  and  trials.  Three 
several  times  I  have  been  remorselessly  and  relentlessly 
victimized  to  the  extent  of  six  consecutive  hours,  at 
the  maximum,  either  by  individuals  who  were  over- 
fascinated  by  my  social  attractions  and  particularly 
convenient  sofa,  or  by  express  combinations  got  to 
gether  for  amusement,  into  which  my  weakness  suf 
fered  me  to  be  wheedled.  Such  martyrdoms  have  a 
most  mildewing  effect  upon  my  faculties.  The  self- 
exhausting  process  which  takes  place  in  the  mind 
and  body  of  a  man  stretched  hour  after  hour  upon 

VOL.  II. 


274  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

the  rack  of  conversational  torture  by  he  or  she  in 
quisitors  leaves  him  —  at  least  it  does  me  —  as  lifeless 
and  spiritless  as  a  clod.  Adrift,  for  instance,  in  the 
middle  of  a  long  evening,  with  a  single  heavy-witted 
companion,  of  known  and  tried  tenacity,  whose  ideas 
I  have  many  years  since  inventoried,  whose  faculties 
I  have  weighed  with  unnecessary  minuteness,  whose 
ultimate  capabilities  I  perfectly  realize,  whose  most 
elaborate  conclusions  I  assume  as  axioms,  in  short 
with  an  individual  all  whose  mental  laws  I  have  ana 
lyzed,  and  therefore  with  the  right  materials  could 
make  just  such  another  man  or  machine,  —  what  has 
life  more  unendurable  !  At  ten  o'clock  to  feel,  like 
the  shipwrecked  sailor  on  a  raft,  that  as  far  as  you 
have  floated  from  eight,  so  far  must  you  toss  and 
hitch  and  worry  without  sail  or  oar,  until  you  strike 
upon  the  dark  and  distant  shore  of  twelve !  My  week 
receives  a  temper  from  a  succession  of  such  trials,  and 
though  habitually  very  cheerful  and  I  believe  even 
good-natured,  my  philosophy  has  shaken  a  little  be 
neath  an  accidental  series  of  such  afflictions.  Conse 
quently  it  was  the  worst  moment  for  your  little 
request,  and  indeed,  from  almost  any  other  source 
I  should  have  rejected  it  with  indignation  as  part  of 
a  systematic  plan  of  imposition,  which  the  world  had 
got  up  to  annoy  me. 

If  I  would  fulfil  my  promise  on  this  page,  I  must 
condense  both  my  meaning  and  my  forms.  First  as 
to  myself,  the  cause  of  this  vexation  which  I  have 
referred  to  is  a  want  of  synchronism  in  some  of  my 
old  friends  and  myself.  Many  of  them  have  remained 
idle  while  I  have  grown  industrious;  have  held  on 
to  prejudices  I  have  outgrown ;  have  given  out  all 
the  gas  my  agency  is  capable  of  extracting.  I  have 


MISCELLANEOUS   LETTEKS  275 

passed  through  the  condition  of  college  idler,  and  an 
apprentice  in  general  society,  and  now  for  the  first 
time  in  my  life  I  find  the  true  desire  of  knowledge 
growing  up  in  my  mind,  and  my  instincts  turning 
from  the  pleasures  of  conversation  to  those  of  books. 
Ten  years  have  probably  carried  me  once  round  my 
own  intellectual  orbit;  I  must  drink  in  light  from 
other  sources.  No  graduate  of  Harvard  —  or  at  least 
very  few  —  had  ever  read  less  at  my  age  than  my 
self.  My  ignorance  one  year  since  would  have  as 
phyxiated  a  legion  of  cherubim.  In  consequence  of 
this  feeling  I  have  been  secretly  throwing  in  know 
ledge  ;  and,  having  confidence  enough  in  my  own 
powers  of  apprehension  and  diligence,  shall  probably 
be  a  pretty  well-informed  man  some  time  or  other. 
When  I  have  ploughed  and  sowed  my  little  intellect 
ual  territory,  if  there  spring  up  any  Arethusa  from 
the  ancient  fountains,  well  and  good ;  if  not,  —  the 
most  important  transactions  of  life,  fortunately,  are 
carried  on  in  prose. 

Now  as  to  yourself,  —  you  must  judge  by  the  man 
ner  in  which  I  have  always  spoken  to  you  about  my 
self  that  I  cannot  rank  you  among  those  common 
companions  or  friends  who  judge  of  one  by  looking  to 
see  how  the  hour  and  minute  hands  of  fortune  and 
favor  stand,  but  neither  care  to  look  into  the  inward 
machinery  nor  are  worthy  of  such  confidence.  I  have 
always  placed  the  highest  value  on  your  good  opinion. 
Many  years  since,  when  you  among  the  very  first 
praised  one  of  my  earliest  efforts,  it  gave  me  more 
sincere  pleasure  than  all  the  other  little  flatteries  I 
received  ;  for,  although  scarcely  known  beyond  one  or 
two  small  coteries,  I  have  been  directly  and  indirectly 
flattered  by  men,  and  especially  by  women.  But  I 


276  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

felt  certain  you  knew  and  meant  what  you  said.  I  am 
going  to  make  one  or  two  criticisms  on  the  pretty 
verses  you  sent  me,  supposing  that  you  kept  a  copy, 
and  that  the  stanzas  are  numbered  in  the  same  order. 
The  first  two  are  neat  and  epigrammatical,  and  would 
indeed  make  a  clever  epigram,  taken  alone.  Is  the 
train  of  sad  feeling  expressed  in  the  next  four  verses 
true  ?  Or  is  it  in  an  imaginary  character,  and  under 
the  influence  of  the  sentimental  feeling  rhyme  is  apt 
to  bring  on,  that  it  was  written?  The  illusions  of 
poetical  feeling  so  often  lead  us  away  that  I  cannot  but 
hope  you  have  exaggerated  the  desolation  of  your  own 
condition.  In  the  seventh  verse  I  don't  like  the  idea 
of  a  soul's  "  glittering,"  —  the  image  of  a  soul  looking 
down  upon  us  suggests  a  resemblance  to  the  pure, 
pale,  and  steady  light  of  a  planet,  if  you  please,  but  no 
such  notion  as  glittering  or  twinkling,  or  indeed  any 
of  the  more  ostentatious  forms  of  effulgence.  Nor 
do  I  like  the  word  "  wiselier "  in  the  last  verse,  if 
there  be  indeed  such  an  English  word.  I  cut  up  a 
poem,  which  a  young  gentleman  is  going  to  deliver  on 
a  public  occasion,  at  his  special  request  and  in  his 
presence  last  evening,  so  that  I  am  critical  to  canni 
balism  this  morning. 

The  verses,  which  you  have  asked  and  I  have  prom 
ised,  must  come,  I  see,  upon  another  piece  of  paper, 
and,  I  fear,  make  you  pay  too  dear  for  the  whistle. 
Single  postage,  like  the  common  atmospheric  pressure, 
keeps  up  the  just  balance  between  the  centrifugal 
force  of  friendship  and  the  centripetal  one  of  interest, 
—  remove  it,  and  our  affections  would  ooze  out  like 
the  traveller's  blood  at  the  summit  of  Mont  Blanc,  — 
but  double  it,  and  the  warmest  current  of  sympathy 
stiffens,  curdles,  and  is  arrested  in  its  channels.  I 


MISCELLANEOUS   LETTERS  277 

have  by  me  one  or  two,  especially  one  crack  piece  of 
poetry.  You  shall  not  have  it ;  I  will  not  give  it 
away  or  sell  it  at  present,  because  I  can  make  it  better 
if  I  keep  it.  I  shall  snub  you  with  an  insignificant 
little  affair,  to  be  called  "The  Parting  Word,"  or 
some  such  name,  and  which,  if  you  are  ashamed  of, 
you  need  not  print.  It  is  no  great  things,  but  for  all 
that  I  am  not  run  out  nor  used  up,  nor  in  a  state  of 
senility  or  caducity.  I  can  write  twice  as  well  as  I 
ever  did  before,  but  I  will  not  write  at  present,  —  and, 
without  looking  your  gift  horse  in  the  mouth,  make 
the  most  of  him,  for  I  shall  not  have  either  colt  or 
pony  to  spare  for  a  year  to  come. 
P.  S.  If  you  print — print  correctly. 


TO   GEORGE   TICKNOR. 

December 

MY  BEAR  SIR,  —  I  thank  you  very  heartily  in  my 
turn  for  the  beautiful  and  interesting  volume  of 
Calderon  you  have  kindly  sent  me.  I  am  much  inter 
ested  in  the  study  of  "  assonants,"  being  well  aware 
that  the  form  of  verse  has  much  to  do  with  the  effect 
of  the  sentiment.  I  was  never  so  much  struck  with 
this  until  I  read  Tennyson's  "  In  Memoriani."  It  is 
truly  extraordinary  what  freshness  is  given  to  a  most 
commonplace  rhythm  by  a  return  to  that  exceptional 
arrangement  of  the  rhymes  occasionally  employed  by 
earlier  writers.  If  I  mistake  not,  "  Hiawatha  "  has 
borrowed  something  of  its  movement  from  Calderon, 
or  some  original  of  similar  construction.  I  am  im 
pressed  with  this  fact  about  all  the  exceptional  meas 
ures  :  that  though  they  please  for  once  in  our  own 
dialect,  they  do  not  bear  repetition.  If  you  will  par- 


278  OLIVEK  WENDELL   HOLMES 

don  me  for  referring  to  the  volume  I  sent  you,  I 
should  like  to  have  you  notice  the  rhythm  of  one  poem 
in  it,  "  The  Chambered  Nautilus."  I  am  as  willing 
to  submit  this  to  criticism  as  any  I  have  written,  in 
form  as  well  as  in  substance,  and  I  have  not  seen  any 
English  verse  of  just  the  same  pattern. 

Lieutenant   Holmes,  of  the  20th  M.  V.,  will  feel 
honored  to   present   himself   at  the   headquarters  of 
scholarship  and  hospitality  in  Park  Street. 
Very  truly  and  respectfully  yours. 


TO   JAMES   TV  FIELDS.1 

PITTSFIELD,  June  13,  1852. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  FIELDS,  —  I  have  just  received  your 
very  interesting  note,  and  the  proof  which  accompanied 
it.  I  don't  know  when  I  ever  read  anything  about 
myself  that  struck  me  so  piquantly  as  that  story  about 
the  old  gentleman.  It  is  almost  too  good  to  be  true, 
but  you  are  not  in  the  habit  of  quizzing.  The  trait 
is  so  nature-like  and  Dickens-like,  no  American  —  no 
living  soul  but  a  peppery,  crotchety,  good-hearted, 
mellow  old  John  Bull  —  could  have  done  such  a  thing. 
God  bless  him !  Perhaps  the  verses  are  not  much, 
and  perhaps  he  is  no  great  judge  whether  they  are  or 
not ;  but  what  a  pleasant  thing  it  is  to  win  the  hearty 
liking  of  any  honest  creature,  who  is  neither  your  rela 
tion  nor  compatriot,  and  who  must  fancy  what  pleases 
him  for  itself  and  nothing  else ! 

I  will  not  say  what  pleasure  I  have  received  from 
Miss  Mitford's  kind  words.  I  am  going  to  sit  down, 
and  write  her  a  letter  with  a  good  deal  of  myself  in  it, 
which  I  am  quite  sure  she  will  read  with  indulgence, 

1  Reprinted  from  The  Century  Magazine^  February,  1895. 


MISCELLANEOUS  LETTERS  279 

if  not  with  gratification.  If  you  see  her,  or  write 
to  her,  be  sure  to  let  her  know  that  she  must  make 
up  her  mind  to  such  a  letter  as  she  will  have  to  sit 
down  to. 

I  am  afraid  I  have  not  much  of  interest  for  you. 
It  is  a  fine  thing  to  see  one's  trees  and  things  growing, 
but  not  so  much  to  tell  of.  I  have  been  a  week  in  the 
country  now,  and  am  writing  at  this  moment  amidst 
such  a  scintillation  of  fireflies  and  chorus  of  frogs  as 
a  cockney  would  cross  the  Atlantic  to  enjoy.  During 
the  past  winter  I  have  done  nothing  but  lecture,  hav 
ing  delivered  between  seventy  and  eighty  all  round 
the  country  from  Maine  to  western  New  York,  and 
even  confronted  the  critical  terrors  of  the  great  city 

that  holds  half  a  million  and  P H .  All  this 

spring  I  have  been  working  on  microscopes,  so  that  it 
is  only  within  a  few  days  I  have  really  got  hold  of  any 
thing  to  read  —  to  say  nothing  of  writing,  except  for 
my  lyceum  audiences.  I  had  a  literary  rencontre  just 
before  I  came  away,  however,  in  the  shape  of  a  din 
ner  at  the  Revere  House,  with  Griswold  and  Epes 
Sargent.  What  a  curious  creature  Griswold  is  !  He 
seems  to  me  a  kind  of  naturalist  whose  subjects  are 
authors,  whose  memory  is  a  perfect  fauna  of  all  flying, 
running,  and  creeping  things  that  feed  on  ink.  Epes 
has  done  mighty  well  with  his  red-edged  school-book,1 
which  is  a  very  creditable-looking  volume,  to  say  the 
least. 

It  would  be  hard  to  tell  how  much  you  are  missed 
among  us.  I  really  do  not  know  who  would  make  a 
greater  blank,  if  he  were  abstracted.  As  for  myself,  I 
have  been  all  lost  since  you  have  been  away,  in  all 
that  relates  to  literary  matters,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
1  Sargent's  Standard  Speaker. 


280  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

almost  daily  aid,  comfort,  and  refreshment  I  imbibed 
from  your  luminous  presence.  Do  come  among  us  as 
soon  as  you  can ;  and  having  come,  stay  among  your 
devoted  friends,  of  whom  count 

O.  W.  HOLMES. 


TO   MRS.  ABIEL   HOLMES. 

PITTSFIBLD,  June  11, 1854. 

MY  DEAR  MOTHER,  —  I  received  Ann's  letter  a  few 
days  ago,  and  would  answer  it  direct  to  her  but  for 
two  reasons  —  first,  that  writing  to  you  is  the  same 
thing ;  second,  that  Amelia  is  actually  writing  at  this 
moment  to  Ann  herself.  Two  letters,  from  husband 
and  wife,  would  be  too  much  for  a  person  confined  to 
her  bed.  —  And  first,  I  hope  you  will  stay  at  Salem  as 
long  as  Ann  can  keep  you  ;  that  is,  until  you  feel  ready 
to  come  to  Pittsfield,  if,  as  is  likely,  you  make  up  your 
mind  to  give  us  that  delight.  At  any  rate,  I  hope  you 
will  make  a  good  long  stay  in  Salem ;  it  must  be  one 
of  the  curative  means  that  can  be  most  relied  upon  to 
keep  the  mind  cheerful  and  bright.  I  would  give 
more  for  your  being  with  Ann  than  for  all  the  salves 
and  'intments  that  were  ever  stirred  up.  —  Please  read 
this  sentence  over  twice,  and  believe  it.  Healing  is  a 
living  process,  greatly  under  the  influence  of  mental 
conditions.  It  has  often  been  found  that  the  same 
wound  received  in  battle  will  do  well  in  the  soldiers 
that  have  beaten,  that  would  prove  fatal  in  those  that 
have  just  been  defeated. 

We  are  going  on  as  pleasantly  as  ever.  I  did  not 
tell  you  that  I  had  been  at  work  with  electricity  as  a 
part  of  my  summer  plan  of  instructive  amusements. 
The  old  machine  is  mounted  on  its  ancient  footing,  or 


MISCELLANEOUS   LETTERS  281 

rather,  with  new  splendor,  and  gives  sparks  an  inch 
long.  I  have  been  making  various  kinds  of  apparatus, 
and  really  reminded  myself  of  my  young  days  more 
than  by  anything  I  have  done  for  a  long  time.  I  find 
that  many  of  my  old  tastes  return  upon  me  whenever 
they  get  a  chance ;  chemistry  will  have  its  turn  by  and 
by,  perhaps  mineralogy,  and  the  rest  of  them.  I 
learn  something  new,  and  often  learn  things  I  can 
make  useful  in  instruction.  But  perhaps  the  pleasant- 
est  thing  about  it  is  that  I  can  do  so  easily  what  I 
used  to  find  so  difficult,  —  realize  my  ideas  with  my 
hands  with  so  much  comfort  and  satisfaction. 

But  in  the  mean  time  the  garden  has  been  growing 
into  beauty  in  the  most  magical  way  under  the  hands 
principally  of  great  A  and  little  a.  I  am  fairly  as 
tonished  at  the  way  in  which  they  work.  Would  you 
believe  it,  —  I  was  stopping  to  rest  with  a  tolerably 
heavy  wheelbarrow  of  gravel  yesterday,  when  Amelia 
took  hold  of  it  and  trundled  it  along  as  if  she  had 
been  a  Paddy. 

Went  to  meet'n   to-day — or  rather   to  church  — 

heard  Mr.  P .     Saw  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Newton,  Judge 

Curtis,  and  others  whom  we  have  not  met.  Very  glad 
to  see  the  Newtons  always  —  gentleman  and  ladies 
—  scarce  articles  in  republican  America.  We  always 
keep  dark  and  lie  low  for  the  first  week  or  two,  be 
fore  beginning  to  visit  and  be  visited.  When  we 
begin  that  series  of  operations  you  shall  hear  of  the 
result.  Infinitely  pleased  and  delighted  with  Ann's 
letter  —  don't  let  her  tire  herself  —  John  must  write. 
I  enclose  a  kiss  to  be  fairly  divided. 

Your  af¥.  son  &  bro. 


282  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

TO   JAMES   T.    FIELDS.1 

8  MONTGOMERY  PLACE,  July  24, 1857. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  FIELDS,  —  I  return  the  three  poems 
you  sent  me,  having  read  them  with  much  gratifica 
tion.  Each  of  them  has  its  peculiar  merits  and 
defects,  as  it  seems  to  me,  but  all  show  poetical  feel 
ing  and  artistic  skill. 

"  Sleep  On  !  "  is  the  freshest  and  most  individual 
in  its  character.  You  will  see  my  pencil  comment  at 
the  end  of  it.  "  Inkerman  "  is  comparatively  slipshod 
and  careless,  though  not  without  lyric  fire  and  vivid 
force  of  description.  "  Eaphael  Sanzio  "  would  de 
serve  higher  praise  if  it  were  not  so  closely  imitative. 

In  truth,  all  these  poems  have  a  genuine  sound ; 
they  are  full  of  poetical  thought,  and  breathed  out  in 
softly  modulated  words.  The  music  of  "  Sleep  On !  " 
is  very  sweet,  and  I  have  never  seen  heroic  verse  in 
which  the  rhyme  was  less  obtrusive,  or  the  rhythm 
more  diffluent.  Still  it  would  not  be  fair  to  speak  in 
these  terms  of  praise  without  pointing  out  the  trans 
parent  imitativeness  which  is  common  to  all  these 
poems. 

"  Inkerman  "  is  a  poetical  Macaulay  stewed.  The 
whole  flow  of  its  verse  and  resonant  passion  of  its 
narrative  are  borrowed  from  the  Lays  of  Ancient 
Rome.  There  are  many  crashing  lines  in  it,  and 
the  story  is  rather  dashingly  told ;  but  it  is  very  in 
ferior  in  polish,  and  even  correctness,  to  both  the 
other  poems.  I  have  marked  some  of  its  errata. 

"  Raphael,"  good  as  it  is,  is  nothing  more  than 
Browning  browned  over.  Every  turn  of  expression, 
and  the  whole  animus,  so  to  speak,  is  taken  from 

1  Reprinted  from  The  Century  Magazine,  February,  1895. 


MISCELLANEOUS  LETTERS  283 

those  poetical  monologues  of  his.  Call  it  an  imita 
tion,  and  it  is  excellent. 

The  best  of  the  three  poems,  then,  is  "  Sleep  On !  " 
I  see  Keats  in  it,  and  one  or  both  of  the  Brownings  ; 
but  though  the  form  is  borrowed,  the  passion  is  genu 
ine,  —  the  fire  has  passed  along  there,  and  the  verse 
has  followed  before  the  ashes  were  quite  cool. 

Talent,  certainly ;  taste  very  fine  for  the  melodies 
of  language ;  deep,  quiet  sentiment.  Genius  ?  If 
beardless,  yea ;  if  in  sable  silvered,  —  and  I  think  this 
cannot  be  a  very  young  hand,  —  why,  then  ...  we 
will  suspend  our  opinion. 


TO   CHABLES   ELIOT  NORTON. 

BOSTON,  August  12,  1859. 

MY  DEAE  CHARLES,  —  I  must  write  a  line  at  least 
to  thank  you  for  my  kind  welcome  and  most  delight 
ful  visit.  Nothing  but  my  own  capricious  infirmity  * 
prevented  it  from  being  a  week  of  unmingled  pleasure. 
I  begin  to  think  I  must  have  fed  on  (atmospheric) 
poisons,  like  Mithridates,  so  that  the  blessed  air  of 
Newport  is  to  my  perverted  organs  as  chlorine  to  rea 
sonable  ones.  All  my  troubles  wear  off  in  a  few  days 
after  my  return.  This  morning  I  am  very  nearly 
right.  Did  you  ever  think  what  a  striking  illustration 
such  cases  —  which  I  think  are  not  uncommon  — 
afford  of  the  relation  of  the  sinful  soul  to  the  holy 
state  of  here  and  hereafter  ?  "  Carry  me  back !  Oh, 
carry  me  back  !  "  the  sinner  would  cry  by  the  waves  of 
the  River  of  Life  or  in  the  streets  of  the  New  Jeru 
salem  ;  "  I  shall  suffocate  in  this  celestial  air,  —  I  am 
poisoned  by  these  limpid  waters !  " 
1  The  asthma. 


284  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

But  though  my  body  suffered  somewhat  for  its 
sinful  second  nature,  my  mind  and  heart  were  more 
refreshed  than  I  can  tell  you.  I  had  been  stationary 
too  long,  —  I  wanted  a  brief  change  of  some  kind,  and 
those  few  days  in  your  bright  home  were  like  the 
drops  of  water  dashed  on  the  forehead  of  one  whose 
eyes  are  just  beginning  to  see  twilight  and  his  lips 
whitening. 

Let  me  be  just  too  to  my  own  home-loving  dispo 
sition  —  this  brief  absence  made  all  around  me  fresher 
and  happier  than  when  I  left  it.  I  came  back  as  the 
sick  man  to  his  chamber,  to  find  that  the  windows 
have  been  opened  and  the  bed  has  been  shaken  up, 
and  he  is  a  new  creation  in  a  new  world.  Such  a 
week  irons  a  year's  creases  out  of  one's  forehead. 

Kemember  me  in  all  honor  and  love  to  your  mother 
and  sisters,  and  tell  Miss  Grace  that  I  don't  know 
whether  to  call  her  a  diamond  set  in  pearls  or  a  pearl 
set  in  diamonds. 

Your  grateful  and  affectionate  cousin. 


TO   JAMES   T.    FIELDS.1 

$100.00. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  The  above  is  an  argument  of 
great  weight  to  all  those  who,  like  the  late  John 
Kogers,  are  surrounded  by  a  numerous  family. 

I  will  incubate  this  golden  egg  two  days,  and  pre 
sent  you  with  the  resulting  chicken  upon  the  third. 
Yours  very  truly. 

P.  S.  You  will  perceive  that  the  last  sentence  is 
figurative,  and  implies  that  I  shall  watch  and  fast 
over  your  proposition  for  forty-eight  hours.  But  I 

1  Reprinted  from  The  Century  Magazine,  February,  1895. 


MISCELLANEOUS  LETTERS  285 

could  n't  on  any  account  be  so  sneaky  as  to  get  up 
and  recite  poor  old  "  Hanover  "  over  again.  Oh,  no ! 
If  anything,  it  must  be  of  the  paullo  majora. 

"  Silvae  sint  consule  dignae."     Let  us  have  a  brand- 
new  poem  or  none. 

Yours  as  on  the  preceding  page. 

TO   JAMES   T.    FIELDS.1 

21  CHARLES  STREET,  July  6,  8.33  A.  M. 
Barometer  at  30^. 

MY  DEAR  FRIEND  AND  NEIGHBOR:  Your  most 
unexpected  gift,  which  is  not  a  mere  token  of  remem 
brance,  but  a  permanently  valuable  present,  is  making 
me  happier  every  moment  I  look  at  it.  It  is  so  pleas 
ant  to  be  thought  of  by  our  friends  when  they  have 
so  much  to  draw  their  thoughts  away  from  us ;  it  is  so 
pleasant,  too,  to  find  that  they  have  cared  enough 
about  us  to  study  our  special  tastes,  —  that  you  can 
see  why  your  beautiful  gift  has  a  growing  charm  for 
me.  Only  Mrs.  Holmes  thinks  it  ought  to  be  in  the 
parlor  among  the  things  for  show,  and  I  think  it 
ought  to  be  in  the  study,  where  I  can  look  at  it  at 
least  once  an  hour  every  day  of  my  life. 

I  have  observed  some  extraordinary  movements  of 
the  index  of  the  barometer  during  the  discussions  that 
ensued,  which  you  may  be  interested  to  see  my  notes 
of:- 

Barometer. 
Mrs.  H. 

My  dear,  we  shall  of  course  keep  this  beautiful 
barometer  in  the  parlor.  pa{r 

Dr.H. 

Why,  no,  my  dear  ;  the  study  is  the  place.  Dry. 

1  Reprinted  from  The  Century  Magazine,  February,  1895. 


286  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

Mrs.  H. 

I  'm  sure  it  ought  to  go  in  the  parlor.     It 's  too 
handsome  for  your  old  den.  Change. 

Dr.H. 

I  shall  keep  it  in  the  study.  Very  dry. 

Mrs.  H. 

I  don't  think  that 's  fair.  Rain. 

Dr.H. 

I  'm  sorry.     Can't  help  it.  Very  dry. 

Mrs.  H. 

It 's  —  too  —  too  —  ba-a-ad.  Much  rain, 

Dr.H. 

(Music  omitted.) 

'Mid  pleas-ures  and  paaal-a-a-c-es.  Set  Fair. 

Mrs.  H. 

I  will  have  it !     You  horrid  —  Stormy. 

You  see  what  a  wonderful  instrument  this  is  that 
you  have  given  me.  But,  my  dear  Mr.  Fields,  while 
I  watch  its  changes  it  will  be  a  constant  memorial 
of  unchanging  friendship ;  and  while  the  dark  hand 
of  fate  is  traversing  the  whole  range  of  mortal  vicis 
situdes,  the  golden  index  of  the  kind  affections  shall 
stand  always  at  SET  FAIR. 


TO  JAMES   T.   FIELDS.1 

296  BEACON'  STREET,  February  11,  1862. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  FIELDS,  —  On  Friday  evening  last 
I  white-cravated  myself,  took  a  carriage,  and  found 
myself  at  your  door  at  eight  of  the  clock  P.  M. 

A  cautious  female  responded  to  my  ring,  and  opened 
the  chained  portal  about  as  far  as  a  clam  opens  his 
shell  to  see  what  is  going  on  in  Cambridge  Street, 
where  he  is  waiting  for  a  customer. 

Her  first  glance   impressed  her  with  the  convic- 

1  Reprinted  from  The  Century  Magazine,  February,  1895. 


MISCELLANEOUS  LETTERS  287 

tion  that  I  was  a  burglar.  The  mild  address  with 
which  I  accosted  her  removed  that  impression,  and  I 
rose  in  the  moral  scale  to  the  comparatively  elevated 
position  of  what  the  unfeeling  world  calls  a  "  sneak- 
thief." 

By  dint,  however,  of  soft  words,  and  that  look  of 
ingenuous  simplicity  by  which  I  am  so  well  known  to 
you  and  all  my  friends,  I  coaxed  her  into  the  belief 
that  I  was  nothing  worse  than  a  rejected  contributor, 
an  autograph  collector,  an  author  with  a  volume  of 
poems  to  dispose  of,  or  other  disagreeable  but  not 
dangerous  character. 

She  unfastened  the  chain,  and  I  stood  before  her. 

I  calmed  her  fears,  and  she  was  calm 
And  told 

me  how  you  and  Mrs.  F.  had  gone  to  New  York,  and 
how  she  knew  nothing  of  any  literary  debauch  that 
was  to  come  off  under  your  roof,  but  would  go  and 
call  another  unprotected  female  who  knew  the  past, 
present,  and  future,  and  could  tell  me  why  this  was 
thus,  that  I  had  been  lured  from  my  fireside  by  the 
ignis  fatuus  of  a  deceptive  invitation. 

It  was  my  turn  to  be  afraid,  alone  in  the  house  with 
two  of  the  stronger  sex ;  and  I  retired. 

On  reaching  home,  I  read  my  note  and  found  it  was 
Friday  the  16th,  not  the  9th,  I  was  invited  for.  .  .  . 

Dear  Mr.  Fields,  I  shall  be  very  happy  to  come  to 
your  home  on  Friday  evening,  the  16th  February,  at 
eight  o'clock,  to  meet  yourself  and  Mrs.  Fields,  and 
hear  Mr.  James  read  his  paper  on  Emerson. 


288  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

TO  JAMES   FREEMAN   CLARKE.1 

June  28,  1864. 

Ex  dono  auctoris.  Thank  you,  my  dear  friend, 
for  the  volume  you  have  kindly  sent  me,  recalling 
many  profitable  hours  —  I  think  I  am  safe  in  saying 
many  —  which  I  have  spent  in  listening  to  some 
among  the  discourses  it  contains. 

I  have  been  feeling  your  texts  (which  as  you  know 
are  the  pulses  of  sermons),  and  from  these  I  have 
stolen  my  way  along  until  I  got  my  hand  on  the  hearts 
of  a  good  number  of  them.  I  think  you  and  I  are 
not  ardent  admirers  of  sermons  in  general.  They 
are  last  year's  bird's-nests,  for  the  most  part,  —  dried 
apples  in  loaded  orchards,  —  the  empty  phials  that 
sick  men  have  drained,  and  died  notwithstanding,  — 
the  skins  of  the  wise  serpents,  out  of  which  they  have 
crept,  carrying  their  brains  with  them.  Nothing  but 
a  pile  of  old  prescriptions  is  worse  reading.  If  I  did 
not  feel  very  sure  you  agree  with  me,  I  should  apolo 
gize  for  my  prelude. 

Now  the  beauty  of  your  sermons  is,  that  they  have 
eggs  in  them,  fragrant  juices  in  them,  strengthening 
cordials  in  them,  sound  brains  in  them,  —  and  there 
fore  you  and  I  are  logically  bound  to  approve,  to 
admire,  and  to  applaud  them.  I  have  always  done  my 
part  in  the  way  of  approbation,  admiration,  and  ap 
plause  ;  but  as  authors  are  apt  sometimes  to  undervalue 
themselves,  I  want  you  to  take  my  word  for  it  that 
your  discourses,  read  or  heard,  are  the  aurum  potdbile 
of  spiritual  medicine.  Less  fancifully,  they  are  first 
perfectly  human  (which  theology  has  not  commonly 

1  In  response  to  the  gift  of  a  volume  of  sermons,  The  Hour 
which  Cometh. 


MISCELLANEOUS   LETTERS  289 

been  at  all  —  still  less  divine) ;  full  of  faith,  full  of 
courage,  full  of  kindness  and  large  charity ;  tender, 
yet  searching  the  realities  of  things  with  true  manly 
thought ;  poetical,  yet  with  a  great  deal  of  plain  com 
mon  sense,  —  sermons  that  will  always  be  good  reading, 
because  they  reach  down  even  below  Christianity  to 
that  plutonic  core  of  nature  over  which  all  revelations 
must  stratify  their  doctrines. 

Thank  you  for  being  good,  for  being  brave,  true, 
tender,  brotherly  to  all  mankind,  sinners  included,  for 
thinking  such  good  thoughts,  for  preaching  them,  for 
printing  them,  and  once  more  for  sending  them  to 
your  loving  friend  and  classmate. 


TO   JAMES   T.    FIELDS.1 

21  CHAKLES  STREET,  July  17,  1864. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  FIELDS,  —  Can  you  tell  me  any 
thing  that  will  get  this  horrible  old  woman  of  the 

C California  off  from  my  shoulders?     Do  you 

know  anything  about  this  pestilent  manuscript  she 
raves  about?  This  continent  is  not  big  enough  for 
me  and  her  together,  and  if  she  does  n't  jump  into  the 
Pacific  I  shall  have  to  leap  into  the  Atlantic, — I  mean 
the  original  damp  spot  so  called. 

P.  S.  To  avoid  the  necessity  of  the  latter,  I  have 
written  to  her,  cordially  recommending  suicide  as 
adapted  to  her  case. 

1  Reprinted  from  The  Century  Magazine,  February,  1895. 


290  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

TO   JAMES   FREEMAN   CLARKE.1 

January  25  (1865  ?). 

MY  DEAR  FRIEND  AND  CLASSMATE,  —  I  have  not 
read  the  "  Address  "  which  you  have  kindly  sent  me, 
though  I  have  taken  a  clairvoyant  look  through  [it] 
and  seen  how  greatly  I  shall  delight  to  read  it. 

I  know  your  fine  critical  sense,  the  many  facets  of 
your  nature,  which  press,  each  in  turn,  so  squarely 
against  every  side  of  human  nature  itself,  living  or 
reproduced  in  literature. 

Therefore  your  talk  about  that  rose  diamond,  who 
reflected  everything,  is  of  very  great  interest  to  me. 
The  criticism  of  different  minds  is  like  the  astrono 
mer's  parallax,  —  nay,  it  is  the  photographer's  por 
traits.  Did  we  not  think  our  friend  had  one  face,  and 
has  not  the  photographer  taught  us  he  has  a  hundred, 
a  million  —  that  he  is  all  the  time  shedding  faces,  of 
which  these  artists  catch  a  dozen  or  two,  but  which 
are  in  number  as  the  sands  of  the  seashore  ?  So  there 
are  innumerous  Shakespeares,  and  among  them  all 
there  is  none  I  want  to  know  more  than  yours. 

Thank  you  again  for  the  great  pleasure  you  promise 
me. 

TO  WILLIAM   AMORT. 

21  CHARLES  STREET,  April  22,  1865. 

DEAR  MR.  AMORY,  —  I  am  promised  my  Rebel- 
lion  Record  next  week,  Monday,  I  think,  and  I  will 
look  it  over  for  poems. 

All  I  will  mention  now  are  these :  — 

1  Acknowledging  receipt  of  a  printed  copy  of  an  address  by 
Dr.  Clarke  before  the  Historic  Genealogical  Society  of  Boston, 
in  1864,  on  the  tercentenary  of  Shakespeare's  birth. 


MISCELLANEOUS  LETTEKS  291 

"  The  Kiver  Fight," 
"  The  Bay  Fight," 

both  by  Henry  Howard  Brownell,  of  East  Hartford, 
Conn.,  who  was  with  Farragut  in  his  battles. 

"  The  Old  Sergeant," 

by  Forceythe  Willson,  a  wonderful  poem  for  direct 
ness  and  literalness  of  narrative,  combined  with  an 
imaginative  grandeur  which  makes  it  one  of  the  most 
impressive  poems  in  our  literature,  —  I  should  be 
inclined  to  say  in  any  literature. 

"  Sheridan's  Bide,"  by  T.  B.  Eead,  I  suppose  you 
know.     It  is  very  spirited,  but  imperfect  in  execution. 
Of  the  Eebel  songs,  the  best  I  know  are  "  Mary 
land  "  and  "  That 's  Stonewall  Jackson's  way." 
There  are  some  verses  beginning 

"  Whoop  !  the  Doodles  are  broken  loose," 

which  are  very  lively  and  stinging. 

I  take  it  for  granted  that  you  know  the  poems  of 
Longfellow,  Lowell,  Mrs.  Howe,  and  the  rest  of  your 
neighbors,  who  have  written  more  or  less  about  the 
war. 

The  Song  of  the  war  is,  after  all,  the  John  Brown 
song.  To  be  sure  some  of  the  verses  are  nonsense  or 
worse,  but  the  first  stanza  and  one  at  least  of  the 
others,  with  the  tune,  closing  with  Hallelujah,  come 
nearest  to  the  "  Marseillaise,"  in  effect  and  as  an  ex 
pression  of  the  feeling  of  the  time,  of  all  that  the  war 
has  produced.  Mrs.  Howe  has  written  some  good 
words  to  the  tune,  beginning,  — 

"  Mine  eyes  have  seen  the  glory  of  the  coming  of  the  Lord." 

Mr.  Brownell  has  also  written  some  good  verses  to 
the  same  tune. 
If  you  get  his  volume,  be  sure  that  it  is  the  second 


292  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

edition,  1864.    The  first  has  not  "  The  Bay  Fight "  or 
"  The  Kiver  Fight." 

I  have  just  copied  off  the  Agassiz  poem  for  you,  — 
I  am  afraid  you  will  be  frightened  when  you  see  how 
long  it  is. 

Very  truly  yours. 


TO  JAMES  T.    FIELDS.1 

MONTREAL,  October  23, 186*7. 

DEAR  MR.  FIELDS,  —  ...  I  am  as  comfortable  here 
as  I  can  be,  but  I  have  earned  my  money,  for  I  have 
had  a  full  share  of  my  old  trouble.1  Last  night  was 
better,  and  to-day  I  am  going  about  the  town.  Miss 
Frothingham  sent  me  a  basket  of  black  Hamburg 
grapes  to-day,  which  were  very  grateful  after  the  hotel 
tea  and  coffee  and  other  'pothecary's  stuff. 

Don't  talk  to  me  about  taverns !  There  is  just  one 
genuine,  clean,  decent,  palatable  thing  occasionally  to 
be  had  in  them  —  namely,  a  boiled  egg.  The  soups 
taste  pretty  good  sometimes,  but  their  sources  are  in 
volved  in  a  darker  mystery  than  that  of  the  Nile. 
Omelettes  taste  as  if  they  had  been  carried  in  the 
waiter's  hat,  or  fried  in  an  old  boot.  I  ordered  scram 
bled  eggs  one  day.  It  must  be  that  they  had  been 
scrambled  for  by  somebody,  but  who  —  who  in  the 
possession  of  a  sound  reason  could  have  scrambled  for 
what  I  had  set  before  me  under  that  name  ?  Butter ! 
I  am  thinking  just  now  of  those  exquisite  little  pellets 
I  have  so  often  seen  at  your  table,  and  wondering  why 
the  taverns  always  keep  it  until  it  is  old.  Fool  that 

1  Reprinted  from  The  Century  Magazine,  February,  1895. 

2  Asthma. 
VOL.  u. 


MISCELLANEOUS   LETTERS  293 

I  am !  As  if  the  taverns  did  not  know  that  if  it  was 
good  it  would  be  eaten,  which  is  not  what  they  want. 
Then  the  waiters  with  their  napkins  —  what  don't 
they  do  with  those  napkins !  Mention  any  one  thing 
of  which  you  think  you  can  say  with  truth,  "  That 
they  do  not  do."  .  .  . 

I  have  a  really  fine  parlor,  but  every  time  I  enter 
it  I  perceive  that 

Still,  sad  "  odor  "  of  humanity 

which  clings  to  it  from  my  predecessor.  Mr.  Hogan 
got  home  yesterday,  I  believe.  I  saw  him  for  the  first 
time  to-day.  He  was  civil  —  they  all  are  civil.  I 
have  no  fault  to  find  except  with  taverns  here  and 
pretty  much  everywhere. 

Every  six  months  a  tavern  should  burn  to  the 
ground,  with  all  its  traps,  its  "  properties,"  its  beds 
and  pots  and  kettles,  and  start  afresh  from  its  ashes 
like  John  Phoenix-Squibob ! 

No;  give  me  home,  or  a  home  like  mine,  where 
all  is  clean  and  sweet,  where  coffee  has  preexisted  in 
the  berry,  and  tea  has  still  faint  recollections  of  the 
pigtails  that  dangled  about  the  plant  from  which  it 
was  picked,  where  butter  has  not  the  prevailing  charac 
ter  which  Pope  assigned  to  Denham,  where  soup  could 
look  you  in  the  face  if  it  had  "  eyes  "  (which  it  has  not), 
and  where  the  comely  Anne  or  the  gracious  Margaret 
takes  the  place  of  these  napkin-bearing  animals. 

Enough !  But  I  have  been  forlorn  and  ailing  and 
fastidious  —  but  I  am  feeling  a  little  better,  and  can 
talk  about  it.  I  had  some  ugly  nights,  I  tell  you ; 
but  I  am  writing  in  good  spirits,  as  you  see.  I  have 
written  once  before  to  Low,  as  I  think  I  told  you,  and 
on  the  25th  mean  to  go  to  a  notary  with  Mr.  Dawson, 
as  he  tells  me  it  is  the  right  thing  to  do. 


294  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

P.  S.   Made  a  pretty  good  dinner,  after  all;  but 
better  a  hash  at  home  than  a  roast  with  strangers. 


TO  JAMES   T.    FIELDS. 

BOSTON,  July  10, 1869. 

MY  DEAR  FIELDS,  —  I  got  your  charming  letter 
yesterday,  with  all  its  pleasant  things,  —  who  ever 
knew  like  you  to  find  something  to  cheer  and  encour 
age  everybody  that  he  thinks  will  feel  better  for  a 
kind  word !  And  the  daisy  from  Alloway  Kirkyard 
too,  —  I  think  I  see  the  very  hillock  it  grew  on  in  my 
stereograph.  We  are  getting  flowers  from  you  at 
home  meantime  very  often,  for  one  comes  with  bou 
quets  gathered  from  your  Charles  Street  garden  and 
leaves  them  for  Mrs.  H.  every  few  days.  Yet  we 
miss  you,  be  very  sure ;  indeed,  we  could  hardly  pass 
your  house  for  the  first  weeks  of  your  absence  without 
a  turn  of  that  form  of  homesickness  one  feels  when 
others,  whom  he  depends  upon  to  make  home  what  it 
is,  are  away.  Very  few  friends  can  be  so  ill  spared ; 
believe  me  when  I  say  it  to  you,  for  I  have  said  it  a 
hundred  times  to  others. 

You  know  what  we  have  been  doing  about  here,  no 
doubt.  How  we  have  had  a  great  Jubilee,  the  funny 
effect  of  which  was  the  acute  paroxysm  of  jealousy  it 
excited  in  some  of  our  neighbors.  I  don't  know  that 
anything  better  was  said  about  it  than  that  of  the 
Daily,  —  viz.,  that  New  York  had  the  Big  Elephant 
(there  is  a  monster  one  there  just  now)  and  the 
Green-Eyed  Monster,  —  the  latter  the  biggest  in  the 
World  (which  was  specially  malicious). 

The  "  Peace  Jubilee  "  was  a  mighty  success,  —  a 
sensation  of  a  lifetime.  It  subdued  everybody  to  it- 


MISCELLANEOUS   LETTERS  295 

self  except  the  Great  Pedlington  malignants.  They 
are  beginning  to  talk  about  getting  up  one  themselves, 
after  having  abused  ours  until  the  country  laughed 
at  them.  The  two  worst  papers  were  the  Tribune 
and  the  World  ;  some  of  the  others  —  the  Herald  and 
Frank  Leslie's  among  the  rest  —  were  all  right. 

I  have  been  in  correspondence  with  Mrs.  Stowe 
about  her  Byron  article  coming  out  in  the  September 
Atlantic.  She  asked  me  to  look  over  her  proofs, 
which  I  did  very  diligently,  and  made  various  lesser 
suggestions,  which  she  received  very  kindly  and 
adopted.  It  will  be  more  widely  read,  of  course,  than 
any  paper  which  has  been  written  for  a  long  time. 

You  ask  me  about  my  new  "  venture."  I  wrote  a 
good  deal  this  spring,  but  of  late  I  have  not  written, 
waiting  until  various  matters  were  off  my  mind,  and 
perhaps  until  the  heats  of  summer  are  over.  I  cannot 
promise  anything  positively  as  yet,  but  as  you  know 
my  habits  and  dispositions  you  can  guess  that  there  is 
a  fair  chance,  and  that  I  shall  probably  let  you  know 
in  season. 

I  enclose  you  two  copies  of  verses,  as  my  friend  of 
The  Nation  calls  my  versified  misfortunes.  The  first 
consists  of  only  four  stanzas,  read  as  a  sequel  to  a 
longer  poem  written  for  our  last  class  meeting,  in 
which  the  "  Boatswain  of  '29  "  gives  advice  to  younger 
craft  how  to  keep  their  crews  and  avoid  shipwreck. 
The  other  verses  will  explain  themselves.  They  were 
"  written  by  request  "  of  the  committee. 

With  our  best  love,  my  own  and  my  wife's,  to  both 
of  you,  and  longing  wishes  for  your  safe  and  speedy 
return,  I  am 

Always  yours. 


296  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 


TO   FREDERIC   H.    HEDGE. 

December  8,  1869. 

MY  DEAR  DR.  HEDGE,  —  You  told  me  that  I  need 
not  read  the  book  which  you  have  sent  me,  and  for 
which  I  cordially  thank  you  ;  but  you  did  not  tell  me 
I  must  not  read  it.  Now  I  have  read  it,  every  word  of 
it,  and  I  wish  to  say  to  you  that  I  have  had  too  much 
pleasure  in  reading  it  to  be  denied  the  privilege  of 
telling  you  how  I  have  enjoyed  it.  I  am  struck  with 
the  union  of  free  thought  and  reverential  feeling,  — 
with  the  ingenuity  of  many  of  your  comments  and 
explanations,  which  yet  commend  themselves  as  hav 
ing  at  least  a  reasonable  degree  of  probability.  Cain 
and  Abel,  for  instance,  became  so  naturally  represent 
atives  of  the  nomadic  herdsman  and  the  tiller  of  the 
ground,  with  his  fences  and  actions  of  trespass,  that 
I  have  quite  forgotten  my  primitive  picture  of  the  two 
men  with  rugs  round  their  middles,  one  of  whom  is 
trying  the  then  new  experiment  of  hitting  the  other 
on  the  head,  to  see  what  effect  it  would  have  on  their 
fraternal  and  celestial  relations.  It  is  strange  how 
we  read  these  stories,  like  children,  until  some  wiser 
teacher  shows  us  the  full-grown  meaning  they  hide 
under  their  beautiful  simple  forms.  I  will  not  say  pos 
itively  that  I  should  agree  with  all  your  glosses ;  but 
they  are  incomparable  in  contrast  with  any  others  I 
have  read.  The  truth  is  staring  the  Christian  world  in 
the  face,  that  the  stories  of  the  old  Hebrew  books  can 
not  be  taken  as  literal  statements  of  fact.  But  the 
property  of  the  church  is  so  large  and  so  mixed  up  with 
its  vested  beliefs,  that  it  is  hopeless  to  expect  anything 
like  honest  avowal  of  the  convictions  which  there  can 
be  little  doubt  intelligent  churchmen  of  many  denom- 


MISCELLANEOUS  LETTERS  297 

inations,  if  not  of  all,  entertain.  It  is  best,  I  sup 
pose,  it  should  be  so,  for  take  idolatry  and  bibliolatry 
out  of  the  world  all  at  once,  as  the  magnetic  mountain 
drew  the  nails  and  bolts  of  Sindbad's  ship,  and  the 
vessel  that  floats  much  of  the  best  of  our  humanity 
would  resolve  itself  in  a  floating  ruin  of  planks  and 
timbers. 

I  am  struck,  too,  with  the  poetical  style  of  many 
of  your  discourses.  In  truth,  you  have  written  more 
verses  than  you  may  perhaps  be  aware  of.  Here  are 
some  of  them  :  — 

"  Our  characters  alone  are  truly  ours,"  p.  20.  "  Not 
years  but  centuries  chronicle  its  ebb,"  p.  64.  "  Mar 
ble  and  brass  have  crumbled  into  dust,"  p.  123.  "  As 
slow  as  that  which  shaped  the  solid  earth  by  long  ac 
cretion  from  the  fiery  deep,"  p.  144. 

"  Both  are  births  of  one  creative  word, 
Both  agencies  of  one  Almighty  Power,"  p.  142. 

"Are  inconsistent  with  the  crowded  life 
Which  such  longevity  must  needs  engender,"  p.  148. 

..."  A  veritable  piece  of  history,'*  \ 

"  Embracing  centuries  in  its  term  and  scope,"  >•  p.  220. 
"  That  wondrous  tower  of  Babel  is  a  fact,"      ) 
"  Still  serves  a  landmark  to  the  nomad  tribes  "  (!). 


Pray  tell  me  if  you  knew  you  were  writing  verse, 
or  were  you  in  the  case  of  M.  Jourdain  ?  In  the 
mean  time,  thanking  you  for  your  charming  and  noble 
commentaries  on  the  grand  old  book, 

I  am  always  gratefully  yours. 


298  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

TO   JAMES   FREEMAN   CLARKE. 

April  14, 1872. 

MY  DEAR  FRIEND  AND  CLASSMATE,  —  A  large  part 
of  my  Sunday  has  been  passed  with  you,  —  for  I  have 
been  reading  in  the  Ten  Great  Religions  most  of  the 
afternoon  (instead  of  going  to  church,  sinner  that  I 
am  (or  not)),  and  I  have  just  finished  the  Address 
at  the  Dedication,  which  I  had  not  read  until  this 
evening. 

I  am  not  going  to  pay  you  cheap  compliments  about 
a  work  which  embodies  the  studies  and  thoughts  of 
so  many  years,  but  I  am  going  to  thank  you  for  writ 
ing  it.  You  could  not  have  chosen  any  task  which 
I  should  have  been  so  grateful  for,  and  you  have  per 
formed  it  in  a  way  which,  if  I  can  judge  by  my  own 
impressions,  must  be  in  the  highest  degree  acceptable 
to  that  very  large  class  of  readers  who  wish  to  have 
some  clear  idea  of  the  comparative  anatomy  (to  steal 
one  of  my  own  terms)  of  religion. 

The  book  is  full  of  interest,  and  ought  to  be  read 
by  all  the  millions  of  rural  and  metropolitan  and  cos 
mopolitan  provincials,  who  think  the  Almighty  never 
cared  a  shekel  for  any  of  his  children  except  a  pack 
of  rebellious  Jews  and  some  fifty  or  sixty  generations 
of  squabbling  and  fighting  Christians. 

The  Address  is  in  the  best  taste,  and  made  the  water 
stand  in  my  eyes,  as  Christiana  had  it  stand  in  hers, 
you  will  remember.  But  I  said  I  would  not  trouble 
you  with  praise,  —  only  this  I  must  say :  I  don't 
know  anybody  whose  brain  and  heart  have  grown 
quite  so  steadily  together  as  yours,  —  and  if  I  could 
look  back  on  such  a  record  as  you  can,  I  should  feel 
that  I  ought  to  be  very  thankful  for  having  always 


MISCELLANEOUS  LETTERS  299 

been  guided  to  the  right  side,  and  having  always  done 
good  service  to  the  noblest  causes  —  truth,  freedom, 
charity,  human  brotherhood. 

I  am  very  glad  my  lecture  amused  you. 


TO   MRS.    CAROLINE   L.    KELLOGG. 

BOSTON,  October  27,  1872. 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  KELLOGG,  —  I  was  greatly  obliged 
to  you  for  the  picture  of  the  old  Puritan  Colonel,  who 
got  into  the  pulpit  mistaking  it  for  the  saddle.  He 
ought  to  have  led  a  charge  of  dragoons  shouting  forth, 
"The  sword  of  the  Lord  and  of  Gideon,"  and  had 
that  knotty  old  frontispiece  of  his  ornamented  with 
half-a-dozen  good  sabre-cuts.  There  are  a  good  many 
soldiers  who  had  better  have  preached,  but  it  is  only 
now  and  then  that  one  sees  a  preacher  who  was  clearly 
meant  for  a  trooper.  However,  I  don't  doubt  that  he 
has  charged  on  the  hosts  of  Satan  as  lustily  as  he 
would  have  pitched  into  the  ranks  of  the  Southern 
fire-eaters. 

I  was  not  a  little  pleased  too  that  you  and  Mrs. 
Stowe  agreed  in  a  charitable  opinion  about  such  a 
heretic  as  I  am.  The  real  truth  is,  these  Beechers  are 
so  chock-full  of  fcgood,  sound,  square-stepping,  strong- 
hearted  humanity  that  they  cannot  shut  the  doors 
of  their  sympathies  against  Jew  or  Gentile.  I  find 
everywhere,  except  among  the  older  sort  of  people  — 
(you  and  I  must  be  old  too,  in  time,  but  even  I  am 
not  old  yet)  —  and  the  smaller  kind  of  human  pota 
toes,  there  is  much  more  real  "Catholicism,"  much 
more  feeling  that  we  are  all  in  the  same  boat  and 
the  boat  in  a  fog,  than  there  was  when  I  was  study 
ing  Calvin's  essence  of  Christianity  in  the  Assembly's 


300  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

Catechism.  So  I  can  understand  how  a  couple  of 
good-hearted  and  large-souled  women  manage  to  tol 
erate  the  existence  of  such  a  person  as  I  am.  But  to 
be  spoken  of  so  very  kindly  as  you  say  Mrs.  Stowe 
spoke  of  me  made  me  color  up  so  that  I  thought  at 
first  you  had  written  on  pink  paper,  —  it  was  the 
reflection  of  my  blushes. 

You  had  a  good  time  at  your  celebration,  as  I  knew 
you  would,  without  getting  me  up  there  to  tag  rhymes 
together  after  the  eloquent  and  elegant  George  had 
exhausted  all  your  sensibilities.  Spunky  town,  Pitts- 
field  !  Jubilees  and  celebrations  are  sure  to  go  off 
well  there.  How  I  sometimes  long  for  a  sight  of 
Saddle  Mountain !  But  then  I  should  have  to  go 
down  to  our  old  place,  and  I  could  not  make  up  my 
mind  to  do  it.  I  should  (want  to)  cry  so  as  to  make 
Sackett's  Brook  run  over  its  banks,  and  there  would 
be  danger  of  a  freshet  in  the  Housatonic.  A  thousand 
thanks  again,  and  remember  me  to  your  husband  and 
children,  and  to  Mrs.  Newton  when  you  see  her. 


TO   BISHOP   LEE. 

December  6,  1879. 
MY    DEAK    BlSHOP-SCHOOLMATE-FRIEND,  —  I    was 

more  pleased  —  I  am  more  pleased,  I  should  say,  for 
I  have  just  read  your  letter  —  at  receiving  your  kind 
message  of  remembrance  than  I  can  tell  in  the  few 
words  to  which  my  tired  right  hand  restricts  me.  I 
cannot  forget  the  interest  you  showed  in  my  early 
papers  in  The  Atlantic,  or  the  friendly  admonition, 
not  unwelcome,  sweet  and  gracious  as  it  was,  that  I 
should  be  careful  in  dealing  with  the  great  subjects 
on  which  I  had  sometimes  ventured.  I  think  you  will 


MISCELLANEOUS   LETTERS  301 

agree  with  me  that  since  that  time  a  remarkable 
change  has  taken  place  in  the  attitude  of  men  towards 
each  other  in  all  that  relates  to  spiritual  matters,  es 
pecially  in  this  respect :  that  Protestantism  is  more 
respectful  in  its  treatment  of  Romanism,  Orthodoxy 
in  its  treatment  of  Heterodoxy,  supernaturalism  in  its 
treatment  of  naturalism,  Christianity  in  its  handling 
of  humanity.  The  limitations  of  men  are  better 
realized,  the  impossibility  of  their  thinking  alike  more 
fully  recognized,  the  virtue  of  humility  found  to 
include  many  things  which  have  often  been  con 
sidered  outside  of  its  province,  —  among  others  the 
conviction  of  the  infallibility  of  our  own  special  con 
victions  in  matters  of  belief,  which  appeal  differently 
to  different  minds.  I  have  tried  to  do  my  share  in 
enlarging  the  spiritual  charity  of  mankind,  and 
though  it  is  delicate,  perhaps  dangerous  work,  as  our 
well-being  in  this  and  all  other  worlds  rests  in  faith 
and  obedience,  I  hope,  if  I  have  done  anything,  it 
has  been  useful,  not  harmful.  It  was  well,  I  think, 
that  you  and  others  should  have  given  me  affectionate 
cautions,  and  I  love  you  all  the  better  for  having 
done  it. 

Believe  me,  my  dear  old  friend,  sincerely  and  affec 
tionately  yours. 


TO   JOHN   O.    SARGENT. 

June  8,  1877. 

MY  DEAR  JOHN,  —  It  sounded  so  good  —  or  looked 
so  good  —  to  be  addressed  as  Wendell !  Few,  few 
are  there  who  call  me  by  that  name.  Herman  Inches, 
James  Russell  Lowell,  —  who  else  besides  these  and 
yourself?  I  got  your  letter  two  or  three  days  ago, 


302  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

and  read  it  at  once.  Now  I  have  just  read  it  again, 
aloud  to  my  wife,  and  the  whole  poem  too,  which  I 
find  mighty  pleasant,  really  Horatian  in  its  whole  tone 
and  spirit.  You  write  better  than  you  did  in  the  days 
of  The  Collegian,  —  you  wrote  remarkably  well  then, 
but  there  is  an  ease  about  this  version  which  only 
a  somewhat  mellow  stage  of  life  can  give  to  prose  or 
verse.  Those  graceful  adaptations  of  Koman  life  to 
New  York  scenes  and  persons  are  very  taking.  I 
shall  go  to  bed  and  dream  that 

"  On  terrapin  and  Clos  Vougeot 
I  'm  lunching  with  Delmonico." 

I  return  Barnes's  letter  to  you,  —  it  is  full  of  good 
feeling,  —  its  only  fault  is  that  it  is  hard  to  read.  I 
did  n't  know  that  men  ever  criss-crossed  their  letters, 
—  don't  I  know  that  women  do !  I  have  had  fifty 
bushels  (more  or  less)  of  letters  from  women,  since  I 
have  been  somewhat  known  as  an  author.  If  I  had 
been  as  good-looking  as  you,  I  suppose  I  should  have 
been  made  a  fool  of,  but  I  am  'umble  about  personal 
advantages.  Besides,  I  remember  Alexandre  Dumas 
or  some  other  Frenchman  says  that  the  women  who 
write  to  authors  are  for  the  most  part  "  laides  pour 
faire  fuir  1'armee  Kusse."  But  as  1  said  before,  they 
do  criss-cross  their  letters  in  such  a  way  that  I  feel  in 
looking  at  them  that  the  age  of  miracles  is  not  past 
after  all. 

Do  you  know  why  I  write  in  this  flippant  way  ?  I 
will  tell  you :  this  is  the  eleventh  letter  I  am  writing 
without  stopping  to  take  breath  between  them,  and 
my  hand  has  got  going  like  planchette.  I  am  sure,  but 
for  that,  I  should  have  written  in  a  different  vein,  for 
I  have  had  enough  to  sadden  me  within  the  past  few 
months.  The  death  of  ,  to  whom  I  was  really 


MISCELLANEOUS   LETTERS  303 

attached,  and  whose  most  pleasant  companionship  I 
miss  very  much,  was  soon  followed  by  that  of  my 
sister,  Mrs.  Upham.  Edmund  Quincy  was  not  so 
much  an  intimate  with  me,  though  an  agreeable  ac 
quaintance.  But  Motley  I  have  been  in  the  closest 
relation  with,  and  especially  of  late  since  his  wife's 
death.  Two  years  ago  he  spent  the  summer,  or  a  large 
part  of  it,  at  Nahant,  and  I  passed  generally  two 
hours  or  thereabouts  with  him  every  day  for  weeks. 
I  have  also  been  in  constant  correspondence  with  him 
for  many  years.  It  is  a  large  gap  he  leaves  in  my 
friendships,  for  one  makes  few  new  friends  in  the 
later  decades  of  life,  and  the  tap-root  of  early  inti 
macy  reaches  deeper  down  than  the  looser  fibres  of 
later  growth.  Constant  occupation  leaves  none  too 
much  of  leisure  for  mourning  over  our  losses  when 
they  do  not  invade  the  circle  of  daily  life.  Perhaps 
it  is  best  it  should  be  so,  but  I  sometimes  feel  as  if 
I  had  not  waked  up  to  all  that  I  have  lost. 

I  enclose  the  account  of  our  Unitarian  festival,  or 
rather  of  my  own  part  in  it,  —  also  a  copy  of  "  The 
First  Fan,"  which  you  were  good  enough  to  speak 
well  of. 

TO   JOHN   G.    WHITTIEB.1 

June  19,  1878. 

MY  DEAR  WHITTIER,  —  It  was  very  kind  in  you 
to  tell  me  that  my  Andover  poem  pleased  you.  I 
wrote  the  poem  rather  as  a  duty  than  as  a  pleasure, 
and  yet  here  and  there  I  found  myself  taken  off  my 
feet  by  that  sudden  influx  of  a  tide  that  comes  from 
we  know  not  whence,  but  which  makes  being,  and 

1  This  letter  has  been  already  printed  in  Pickard's  Life  and 
Letters  of  John  Greenleaf  Whittier. 


304  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

especially  internal  vision,  so  intense  and  real.  You, 
as  a  poet,  know  so  well  what  that  means  !  But  I  will 
give  a  trivial  illustration,  which  to  my  mind  is  much 
better  than  a  grander  one.  In  the  intensified  state  of 
retrospection  which  came  over  me,  a  fact  reproduced 
itself,  which  I  do  not  believe  had  come  up  before  for 
fifty  years.  It  was  "  the  up  ward- slanting  floor  "  of 
the  school-room  at  the  Academy.  Not  a  poetical  fact, 
—  and  all  the  better  for  that,  —  not  an  important 
one,  but  still  a  fact  which  had  its  place  in  the  old 
fresco  that  seemed  to  have  utterly  faded  from  the 
wall  of  memory.  What  an  exalted  state  of  vitality 
that  is  which  thus  reproduces  obsolete  trivialities  as 
a  part  of  its  vivid  picture,  —  flashes,  —  just  as  in 
the  experience  a  hundred  times  recorded  of  drowning 
persons  who  have  been  rescued!  We  may  become 
intensely  conscious  of  existence  through  pleasure  or 
through  pain,  but  we  never  know  ourselves  until  we 
have  tried  both  experiences  ;  and  I  think  that  some 
of  the  most  real  moments  of  life  are  those  in  which 
we  are  seized  upon  by  that  higher  power,  which  takes 
the  rudder  out  of  the  hands  of  will,  as  the  pilot  takes 
the  place  of  the  captain  in  entering  some  strange  har 
bor  ;  and  I  am  sure  I  never  know  where  I  am  going 
to  be  landed  from  the  moment  I  find  myself  in  the 
strange  hands  of  the  unknown  power  that  has  taken 
control  of  me.  Not  that  there  is  much,  if  any,  of 
what  is  called  "  inspiration  "  in  the  particular  poem 
that  pleases  you,  —  but  there  are  passages,  for  all 
that,  which  I  could  not  write  except  in  the  clairvoyant 
condition.  To  cover  my  egotisms,  let  me  say  to  you 
unhesitatingly  that  you  have  written  the  most  beauti 
ful  school-boy  poem  in  the  English  language.  I  just 
this  moment  read  it,  because  I  was  writing  to  you, 


MISCELLANEOUS   LETTERS  305 

and  before  I  had  got  through  "  In  School-Days  "  the 
tears  were  rolling  out  of  my  eyes.  Yes,  I  need  not 
have  said  all  this  to  you,  as  if  you  did  not  know  it  all, 
—  perhaps  I  said  it  because  you  know  it  so  well. 

I  am  very  glad  you  are  interested  in  Dr.  Clarke's 
book.  I  watched  him  during  its  preparation,  and 
discussed  many  points  with  him.  To  me  the  book  is 
in  every  way  full  of  interest,  —  and  it  will  always  be 
memorable  as  having  been  written  in  the  valley  of  the 
shadow  of  death.  I  have  left  no  room  for  all  the  feel 
ings  I  wish  to  express  to  you  ;  perhaps  they  are  better 
imagined. 

TO   JOHN   G.    WHITTIER.1 

BOSTON,  October  10,  1878. 

MY  DEAR  WHITTIER,  —  I  know  how  to  thank  you 
for  the  poems,  but  I  do  not  know  how  to  thank  you 
for  the  more  than  kind  words  which  make  the  little 
volume  precious.  I  never  was  so  busy,  it  seems  to 
me,  what  with  daily  lectures  and  literary  tasks  on 
hand,  and  all  the  interruptions  which  you  know  about 
so  well.  But  I  would  not  thank  you  for  your  sweet 
and  most  cheering  remembrance  before  reading  every 
poem  over,  whether  I  remembered  it  well  or  not. 
And  this  has  been  a  great  pleasure  to  me,  for  you 
write  from  your  heart  and  reach  all  hearts.  My  wife 
wanted  me  to  read  one,  —  a  special  favorite  of  my 
own,  «  The  Witch  of  Wenham,"  but  I  told  her  "  No," 
- 1  knew  I  should  break  down  before  I  got  through 
with  it,  for  it  made  me  tearful  again,  as  it  did  the  first 
time  I  read  it. 

I  was  going  to  say :  I  thank  you ;  but  I  would  say, 

1  This  letter  has  been  already  printed  in  Pickard's  Life  and 
Letters  of  John  Greenleaf  Whittier. 


306  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

rather,  _  thank  God  that  He  has  given  you  the  thoughts 
and  feelings  which  sing  themselves  as  naturally  as  the 
wood-thrush  rings  his  silver  bell,  —  to  steal  your  own 
exquisitely  descriptive  line.  Who  has  preached  the 
gospel  of  love  to  such  a  mighty  congregation  as  you 
have  preached  it  ?  Who  has  done  so  much  to  sweeten 
the  soul  of  Calvinistic  New  England  ?  You  have  your 
reward  here  in  the  affection  with  which  all  our  people, 
who  are  capable  of  loving  anybody,  regard  you.  I 
trust  you  will  find  a  still  higher  in  that  world  the 
harmonies  of  which  find  an  echo  in  so  many  of  your 
songs. 

TO   GEORGE   ABBOT  JAMES. 

296  BEACON  STREET,  December  26,  1879. 

MY  DEAR  GEORGE,  —  We  —  for  we  do  not  know 
each  other  apart  very  well  —  are  greatly  obliged  by 
your  kind  remembrance,  and  mightily  pleased  with  the 
Royal  token  of  it.  Louis  Philippe,  "  le  Hoi  Citoyen," 
was  my  monarch  for  nearly  three  years.  I  remember 
visiting  his  palace  at  Fontainebleau,  but  he  did  not  ask 
me  to  stay,  —  not  being  there,  probably,  at  the  time. 
I  cannot  help  recalling  a  French  lesson  I  got  apropos 
of  that  visit. 

With  two  other  students  —  Sam  Wigglesworth  was 
one  of  them  —  I  was  seated  in  front  of  the  Dili 
gence  on  the  imperial,  if  I  remember  the  name  cor 
rectly.  The  great  vehicle  entered  a  courtyard  at 
Fontainebleau,  making  a  sudden  turn,  and  if  we  had 
not  bobbed  our  heads  very  quickly  and  very  humbly, 
there  would  have  been  three  letters  with  black  seals 
sent  to  America  by  the  next  sailing-vessel.  As  soon 
as  we  were  inside  the  courtyard  I  exclaimed  in  loud 
tones  to  the  driver  :  "  Vous  avez  manque  de  tuer  trois 


MISCELLANEOUS   LETTERS  307 

gentilshommes."  I  got  consumedly  laughed  at  for 
using  the  word  I  have  underscored,  —  noblemen,  they 
said  it  meant  —  when  speaking  of  trois  etudiants. 

See,  now,  how  your  beautiful  gift  wakes  up  old  recol 
lections  —  the  stately  palace,  the  noble  park-forest ; 
rather,  the  great  trees,  —  I  remember  one  in  particular, 
le  bouquet  du  Roi,  —  the  weeping  rock  (la  roche  qui 
pleure),  and  the  pale  woman  with  her  sick  child, 
catching  the  drops  to  give  him ;  Ca  donne  de  la  force, 
she  said.  All  these,  and  many  another  recollection, 
are  summoned  as  I  read  the  word  "  Fontainebleau  " 
on  the  exquisite  Sevres  porcelain. 

But  better  than  all  this  is  the  feeling  that  the  cup, 
which  held  —  or  may  have  held  —  the  coffee  for  a 
king's  breakfast,  comes  holding  what  kings  cannot 
always  command,  the  kind  wishes  of  one  whose  friend 
ship  we  are  sure  of. 

With  our  love  to  yourself  and  Lily,  from  both  of 
us,  for  both  of  us. 


TO    JOHN   GREENLEAF   WHITTIER.1 

March  6,  1881. 

I  have  sweetened  this  Sunday  afternoon  by  reading 
the  poems  in  the  precious  little  volume  you  sent  me  a 
few  days  ago.  Some  were  new  to  me  ;  others,  as  you 
ought  to  know,  are  well  known.  I  have  not  forgotten 
your  kind  words  for  my  evening  breakfast.  If  you 
happen  to  have  seen  an  article  in  the  March  —  or  was 
it  February  ?  —  Worth  American,  you  will  have 
noticed,  it  may  be,  my  reference  to  "  The  Minister's 
Daughter,"  and  to  yourself  as  preaching  the  Gospel 

1  Reproduced  from  Pickard's  Life  of  John  Greenleaf  Whittier, 
ii.  667. 


308  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

of  Love  to  a  larger  congregation  than  any  minister 
addresses.  I  never  rise  from  any  of  your  poems  with 
out  feeling  the  refreshment  of  their  free  and  sweet 
atmosphere.  I  may  find  more  perfume  in  one  than  in 
another,  —  as  one  does  in  passing  from  one  flowery 
field  into  the  next.  I  may  find  more  careful  planting 
in  this  or  in  that,  as  in  different  garden-beds,  but 
there  is  always  the  morning  air  of  a  soul  that  breathes 
freely,  and  always  the  fragrance  of  a  loving  spirit. 
Again  that  sweetest  "  Minister's  Daughter  "  brought 
the  tears  into  my  eyes  —  and  out  of  them.  Again  I 
read  with  emotion  that  generous  tribute  ["  The  Lost 
Occasion  "]  to  the  man  whom,  living,  we  so  longed  to 
admire  without  a  reservation;  of  whom,  dead,  you 
write  with  such  a  noble  humanity.  I  must  not  speak 
too  warmly  of  the  lines  whose  kindness  I  feel  so 
deeply,  only  wishing  I  had  deserved  such  a  tribute 
better.  But  of  the  poem  which  comes  next,  "  Garri 
son,"  I  can  speak;  and  I  will  say  that  it  has  the 
strenuous  tone,  the  grave  music,  of  your  highest  mood, 
—  which,  I  believe,  is  the  truest  and  best  expression 
of  the  New  England  inner  life  which  it  has  ever  found, 
at  least  in  versified  utterance.  I  have  forgotten  to 
thank  you  for  remembering  me,  and  especially  for  the 
way  in  which  you  remember  me,  for  I  did  not  miss 
the  words  which  made  my  blood  warm,  as  I  read  them 
on  the  fly-leaf.  Let  me  say  —  for  it  means  more  than 
you  can  know  —  that  no  written  or  printed  words 
come  into  our  household  on  which  my  wife,  a  very 
true-hearted  woman,  looks  with  so  much  interest  as 
on  yours. 

VOL.  II. 


MISCELLANEOUS   LETTERS  30 9 

TO   JAMES   FREEMAN   CLARKE.1 

April  6,  1881. 

MY  DEAR  JAMES,  —  Many  thanks  for  your  book, 
in  which  I  have  read  a  good  deal,  selecting  the  parts 
which  most  interested  me,  and  have  found  them  full 
of  interest,  carefully  studied  and  vividly  presented. 
I  should  think  this  book  must  have  a  wider  circu 
lation  than  anything  you  have  written,  and  though 
many  readers  will  say  they  accept  more  of  the  Chris 
tian  story  as  fact,  and  others  less,  than  you  do,  yet 
all  will  agree  that  the  narrative  is  admirable,  the 
sweet  reasonableness  that  runs  through  it  all  enough 
to  disarm  all  angry  criticisms.  There  is  only  one 
grave  objection  to  so  wise  and  good  a  teacher  as  you 
are,  —  it  is,  that  he  renders  the  supernatural  less  prob 
able  by  showing  us  what  excellence  a  man  may  reach 
without  being  born  out  of  the  natural  order  or  en 
dowed  with  more  than  the  human  divine  attributes. 

TO   BISHOP   LEE. 

January  25,  1883. 

MY  DEAR  BISHOP,  —  I  am  sorry  that  you  should 
have  been  put  to  the  trouble  to  answer  a  letter  about 
me.  I  know  nothing  of  the  writer  except  that  he 
applied  to  me  for  my  experiences  of  life.  I  offered 
him  the  same  outline  of  its  chief  epochs  as  I  do  to 
others  who  are  curious  about  my  personality,  and  told 
him  that  another  gentleman,  a  man  of  some  literary 
standing,  was  beforehand  with  him,  and  that  I  had 
promised  him  the  incidents  to  help  out  his  narrative. 

1  Acknowledging  the  receipt  of  The  Legend  of  Thomas  Didy- 
mus. 


310  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

This  pursuit  of  the  biographers  is  like  the  poor  young 
prince's  "  baptism  of  fire,"  —  a  kind  of  necessity  to 
authors  who  reach  a  certain  amount  of  publicity.  To 
shield  myself  from  the  fusillade  I  had  some  copies  of 
the  main  facts  of  my  life  made,  and  I  dodge  behind 
these  when  they  open  fire. 

There  is  one  pleasant  thing  about  it,  —  it  brought 
me  a  letter  from  an  honored  and  beloved  old  school 
mate  of  my  tender  years.  I  am  very  glad  to  hear 
that  you  are  well  and  happy,  as  you  ought  to  be,  with 
a  long,  diligent,  useful,  and  dignified  career  to  look 
back  upon. 

I  did  not  give  up  my  professorship  from  any  kind 
of  infirmity,  mental  or  bodily,  but  because  my  ser 
vices  in  literature  were  called  for  on  such  terms  that 
I  could  not  resist  the  advantages  they  offered.  Like 
all  the  rest  of  us,  I  feel  the  effects  of  age ;  but  I 
enjoy  life  and  work,  and  may  possibly  do  a  good  deal 
of  writing  before  I  am  done  with.  I  have  become 
quite  attached  to  this  particular  planet,  with  which  I 
have  been  so  long  acquainted.  I  wish  I  could  believe 
that  we  may  be  able  to  take  a  peep  at  it  now  and  then 
from  the  height  of  a  future  existence.  I  can  hardly 
conceive  of  its  losing  its  interest  for  those  who  have 
been  cradled  on  it.  I  do  not  know  whether  this  is 
quite  Orthodox,  but  it  is  mighty  human. 

I  hope  I  may  some  time  have  the  pleasure  of  meet 
ing  you  at  one  of  our  Harvard  Commencements,  but 
I  suppose  you  find,  as  I  do,  that  every  year  makes  it 
harder  and  harder  to  get  away  from  the  fireside. 
Wishing  you,  in  return  for  your  kind  expressions, 
all  the  blessings  that  the  evening  of  life  can  bring, 
I  am 

Your  once  little  schoolmate,  now  your  old  friend. 


MISCELLANEOUS   LETTERS  311 


TO  JOHN   O.    SARGENT. 

May  15, 1887. 

MY  DEAR  JOHN, — Isn't  it  a  comfort  to  be  called  by 
your  Chris'n  name  by  one  to  whom  it  "comes  natural " 
to  do  so  ?  Yes,  you  are  John  and  I  am  Wendell  till 
the  stars  are  opposite  our  names  in  the  Quinquennial. 
I  delight  in  finding  that  [you]  are  as  much  alive 
as  ever.  If  there  are  two  of  you,  so  much  the  better  ; 

—  we  can't  have  too  many  John  O.'s.     I  did  not  see 
your  double  at  the  Governor's,  and  I  never  saw  Wade 
Hampton  ;  so  whether  he  has  the  honor  of  looking 
like  you  I  cannot  say. 

"  Cope  could  not  cope,  nor  Wade  wade  through  the  snow, 
Nor  Hawley  haul  his  cannon  to  the  foe." 

Wade  would  have  liked  to  wade  through  the  blood 
of  our  soldiers,  I  suppose,  as  far  as  Bunker  Hill,  — 
but  he  did  n't.  No,  my  dear  John,  look  like  yourself, 

—  you  were  never  an  unhandsome-looking  fellow. 

I  am  so  glad  to  see  that  you  stick  to -your  Horace. 
I  read  your  translations  with  great  delight  as  soon  as 
they  came,  and  have  them  lying  by  me  to  read  again. 
I  found  them  admirable.  The  fact  is,  you  have  lived 
in  Horace  so  intimately  and  so  long  that  you  have  got 
his  flavor  into  your  very  marrow,  and  feel  and  talk 
just  as  that  grand  Eoman  gentleman  did.  You  would 
have  been  good  company  for  Maecenas.  I  wish  I  had 
become  as  familiar  with  some  classic  author  as  you  are 
with  Horace.  There  is  nothing  like  one  of  those  pe 
rennial  old  fellows  for  good  old  gentlemanly  reading  ; 
and  for  wit  and  wisdom,  what  is  there  to  compare  with 
the  writings  of  Horace  ?  You  make  me  envious,  — 
I  vow  I  shall  have  to  get  up  Juvenal  or  Catullus, 


312  OLIVER   WENDELL    HOLMES 

naughty  but  nice,  or  somebody  that  nobody  else  knows 
about  —  Silius  Italicus  —  or  mediaeval  Vida  "  on  whose 
classic  brow,"  etc.,  etc.,  or  George  Buchanan.  I  get 
so  tired  of  the  damp  sheets  of  all  sorts  of  literati  just 
out  of  the  press,  —  of  screeching  rhymesters  (worse 
than  the  "  screeching  women  of  Marblehead  "),  and 
clamorous  essayists,  that  I  want  something  always  by 
me,  calm,  settled  beyond  cavilling  criticism,  —  a  cool, 
clear  draught  of  Falernian  thaf  has  been  somewhere 
near  two  thousand  years  in  the  cellar. 

I  hope  you  will  go  on  and  translate  all  the  Odes 
and  as  much  else  of  Horace's  as  you  have  the  courage 
to  attack. 

TO   JOHN   O.    SARGENT. 

November  16,  1888. 

DEAR  JOHN,  —  Next  to  a  good  poem  is  a  good 
criticism  on  it.  I  have  been  reading  the  Ode  "  Jus- 
tuin  et  tenacem  "  carefully,  and  your  translation  and 
commentary.  I  feel  as  if  I  had  never  taken  the  noble 
poem  in  before.  How  brave  a  scholiast  was  in  Sar 
gent  —  no,  not  lost  by  ever  so  much,  for  you  will  live 
to  print  that  volume  of  "  Translations  "  with  notes 
critical  and  explanatory,  and  I  hope  I  shall  live  to 
receive  a  presentation  copy. 

I  find  the  translation  and  the  elucidation  of  the 
poem  admirable.  I  shall  catch  your  Horatio-mania,  I 
am  afraid,  for  I  have  so  many  irons  in  the  fire  that 
I  dread  a  new  temptation. 

"  Si  f  ractus  illabatur  orbis 
Impavidum  ferient  ruinse." 

I  remember  contrasting  that  magnificent  utterance 
of  old  Pagan  manhood  with  the  abject  terrors  of  the 


MISCELLANEOUS   LETTERS  313 

Dies  irce.     Which  is  the  nobler  attitude  for  one  of 
God's  human  creatures  ? 

It  seems  to  me  that  we  are  both  pretty  bright  for 
old  friends  that  can  begin  their  old  stories  with  the 
second  title  of  Waverley,  "  'T  is  sixty  years  since." 


TO    JOHN    G.    WHITTIER.1 

September  2,  1889. 

Here  I  am  at  your  side  among  the  octogenarians. 

You  know  all  about  it.  You  know  why  I  have  not 
thanked  you  before  this  for  your  beautiful  and  pre 
cious  tribute,  which  would  make  any  birthday  mem 
orable.  I  remember  how  you  were  overwhelmed  with 
tributes  on  the  occasion  of  your  own  eightieth  birth 
day,  and  you  can  understand  the  impossibility  I  find 
before  me  of  responding  in  any  fitting  shape  to  all 
the  tokens  of  friendship  which  I  receive.  ...  I  hope, 
dear  Whittier,  that  you  find  much  to  enjoy  in  the 
midst  of  all  the  lesser  trials  which  old  age  must  bring 
with  it.  You  have  kind  friends  all  around  you,  and 
the  love  and  homage  of  your  fellow-countrymen  as 
few  have  enjoyed  them,  with  the  deep  satisfaction  of 
knowing  that  you  have  earned  them,  not  merely  by 
the  gifts  of  your  genius,  but  by  a  noble  life  which  has 
ripened  without  a  flaw  into  a  grand  and  serene  old 
age.  I  never  see  my  name  coupled  with  yours,  as  it 
often  is  nowadays,  without  feeling  honored  by  finding 
myself  in  such  company,  and  wishing  that  I  were 
more  worthy  of  it.  ...  I  am  living  here  with  my 
daughter-in-law,  and  just  as  I  turned  this  leaf  I  heard 

1  Reproduced  from  Pickard's  Life  of  John  Greenleaf  Whittier, 
ii.  741. 


314  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES 

wheels  at  the  door,  and  she  got  out,  leading  in  in 
triumph  her  husband,  His  Honor,  Judge  Holmes  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  Massachusetts,  just  arrived 
from  Europe  by  the  Scythia.  I  look  up  to  him  as 
my  magistrate,  and  he  knows  me  as  his  father,  but 
my  arms  are  around  his  neck  and  his  moustache  is 
sweeping  my  cheek,  —  I  feel  young  again  at  four 
score. 

TO  JOHN   C.   TRAUTWINE,   JR. 

BOSTON,  April  29,  1891. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  Your  letter  was  —  is,  I  should 
say  —  in  many  respects  very  gratifying  to  me.  I  try 
to  remember  Bacon's  precept  always,  and  I  apply  it 
specially  to  this  letter  of  yours  ;  —  it  is  well  worn,  but 
you  will  let  me  repeat  it :  — 

"  Read  not  to  contradict  and  refute ;  not  to  believe 
and  take  for  granted ;  not  to  find  talk  and  discourse  ; 
but  to  weigh  and  consider." 

I  notice  that  you  are  J.  C.  T.  Junior.  Do  you 
suppose  I  want  you,  a  young  man,  to  take  the  severe 
views  of  the  future  that  I,  a  confirmed  octogenarian, 
do  ?  No,  I  am  very  willing  to  see  you  and  other  young 
persons  more  sanguine  than  myself  in  their  views  of 
a  possible  condition  of  humanity  which  I  cannot  be 
lieve  in  as  they  do,  but  towards  which,  as  an  unat 
tainable  ideal,  many  practical  measures  may  be  insti 
tuted  which  will  prove  serviceable.  The  best  examples 
I  can  find  of  a  truly  realized  communistic  society  are 
to  be  looked  for  among  the  Shakers,  who  have  no 
wives  nor  children,  and  the  ants,  who  have  no  brains. 
But  I  would  get  a  lesson  from  both,  —  adopt  some 
things  from  the  Shaker  communities  and  some  from 
the  excellently  ordered  and  thoroughly  socialistic  ant- 
villages. 


MISCELLANEOUS  LETTERS  315 

I  do  not  pretend  to  answer  all  the  letters  I  receive 
with  my  own  hand,  as  it  would  take  all  my  time  to 
do  it,  but  I  was  unwilling  to  hand  your  letter  over 
to  my  secretary,  and  I  thank  you  personally  for  your 
friendly  way  of  [showing  me]  what  you  think  is  my 
error,  —  an  error,  if  it  be  one,  of  no  great  consequence 
in  a  writer  who  has  survived  his  generation,  and  can 
hardly  be  expected  to  see  the  future  with  the  eyes  of 
his  children  and  grandchildren. 


TO   JOHN   G.    WHITTIER.1 

[1891.] 

I  congratulate  you  upon  having  climbed  another 
glacier  and  crossed  another  crevasse  in  your  ascent  of 
the  white  summit  which  already  begins  to  see  the 
morning  twilight  of  the  coming  century.  A  life  so 
well  filled  as  yours  has  been  cannot  be  too  long  for 
your  fellow-men.  In  their  affections  you  are  secure, 
whether  you  are  with  them  here,  or  near  them  in  some 
higher  life  than  theirs.  I  hope  your  years  have  not 
become  a  burden,  so  that  you  are  tired  of  living.  At 
our  age  we  must  live  chiefly  in  the  past :  happy  is  he 
who  has  a  past  like  yours  to  look  back  upon.  It  is 
one  of  the  felicitous  incidents  —  I  will  not  say  acci 
dents  —  of  my  life,  that  the  lapse  of  time  has  brought 
us  very  near  together,  so  that  I  frequently  find  myself 
honored  by  seeing  my  name  mentioned  in  near  con 
nection  with  your  own.  We  are  lonely,  very  lonely, 
in  these  last  years.  The  image  which  I  have  used 
before  this  in  writing  to  you  recurs  once  more  to  my 
thought.  We  were  on  deck  together  as  we  began  the 

1  Reproduced  from  Pickard's  Life  of  John  Greenleaf  Whit- 
tier,  ii.  755. 


316  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 

voyage  of  life  two  generations  ago.  A  whole  genera 
tion  passed,  and  the  succeeding  one  found  us  in  the 
cabin  with  a  goodly  number  of  coevals.  Then  the 
craft  which  held  us  began  going  to  pieces,  until  a  few 
of  us  were  left  on  the  raft  pieced  together  of  its  frag 
ments.  And  now  the  raft  has  at  last  parted,  and  you 
and  I  are  left  clinging  to  the  solitary  spar,  which  is 
all  that  still  remains  afloat  of  the  sunken  vessel. 

I  have  just  been  looking  over  the  headstones  in  Mr. 
Griswold's  cemetery,  entitled  The  Poets  and  Poetry 
of  America.  In  that  venerable  receptacle,  just  com 
pleting  its  half  century  of  existence  —  for  the  date  of 
the  edition  before  me  is  1842  —  I  find  the  names  of 
John  Greenleaf  Whittier  and  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes 
next  each  other,  in  their  due  order,  as  they  should  be. 
All  around  are  the  names  of  the  dead  —  too  often  of 
forgotten  dead.  Three  which  I  see  there  are  still 
living :  Mr.  John  Osborne  Sargent,  who  makes  Horace 
his  own  by  faithful  study,  and  ours  by  scholarly  trans 
lation;  Isaac  McLellan,  who  was  writing  in  1830, 
and  whose  last  work  is  dated  1886 ;  and  Christopher 
P.  Cranch,  whose  poetical  gift  has  too  rarely  found 
expression.  Of  these  many  dead,  you  are  the  most 
venerated,  revered,  and  beloved  survivor;  of  these 
few  living,  the  most  honored  representative.  Long 
may  it  be  before  you  leave  a  world  where  your  influ 
ence  has  been  so  beneficent,  where  your  example  has 
been  such  inspiration,  where  you  are  so  truly  loved, 
and  where  your  presence  is  a  perpetual  benediction. 

TO   CHARLES   ELIOT   NORTON. 

296  BEACON  STREET,  October  17,  1891. 
MY  DEAR  Friend,  —  You  must  feel  the  meaning 
of  that  word  more  and  more,  as  I  do  certainly,  as,  one 


MISCELLANEOUS   LETTERS  317 

after  another,  those  whose  friendship  means  most  for 
me  are  taken  away.  I  think  I  know  what  this  last 
supreme  loss 1  must  be  to  you,  and  I  assure  you  I  have 
thought  a  great  deal  of  your  bereavement,  and  felt  a 
sympathy  for  you  which  I  have  rarely  known  for  any 
one  out  of  my  own  family  circle.  I  am  sure  that  his 
intimacy  must  have  made  a  large  part  of  your  interest 
in  life.  During  the  delivery  of  his  noble  poem,  read 
under  the  Washington  elrn,  I  could  not  keep  my  eyes 
from  following  the  expression  of  your  countenance.  No 
Dante  in  the  presence  of  Beatrice  could  have  shown 
more  truthfully  in  his  features  the  delight  with  which 
he  looked  at  her  and  listened  to  her.  It  impressed  me 
more  than  all  else  on  that  occasion,  and  I  never  think 
of  you  without  seeing  your  portrait  in  that  exalted 
state  of  feeling  —  I  will  not  say 

"  breathless  with  adoration," 

for  the  phrase  might  not  please  you,  —  but  entirely 
absorbed  in  the  delight  which  you  were  experiencing. 
I  could  claim  no  such  intimacy  as  yours  with  James, 
and  yet  I  feel  his  loss  very  deeply.  He  always  showed 
a  very  kindly  feeling  towards  me,  and  I  owe  to  him 
more  than  to  almost  any  other  friend.  He  early  tried 
to  interest  me  in  some  of  those  larger  movements  in 
which  he  was  himself  active.  I  recognized  the  gener 
ous  aim  of  his  effort,  and  received  his  communication 
not  ungraciously.  But  the  little  fruit  on  my  poorly 
built  espalier  was  very  slow  in  ripening,  and  after  that 
first  attempt  of  his  he  left  me  for  a  long  interval  to 
ripen  as  I  might.  It  was  not  until  1857  that  he 
appealed  to  me  again,  not  so  much  trying  to  change 
my  ways  of  thinking  and  acting  as  to  stimulate  me  to 
1  The  death  of  James  Russell  Lowell. 


318  OLIVEK   WENDELL   HOLMES 

use  certain  gifts,  which  he  believed  I  had  from  nature, 
for  the  use  of  the  public.  Though  almost  a  decade 
younger  than  myself,  I  recognized  his  literary  experi 
ence  and  wisdom,  and  began  to  believe  in  myself 
because  he  thought  so  well  of  me.  From  the  impulse 
he  gave  me  I  date  my  best  efforts  and  my  nearest 
approach  to  success  in  literary  pursuits.  His  praise  I 
always  felt  to  be  one  of  my  best  rewards. 

I  am  rejoiced  to  know  that  you  are  to  write  the 
Memoir,  for  which  the  world  of  letters  will  be  impa 
tiently  waiting.  No  one  else  could  have  been  thought 
of,  and  I  hope  most  sincerely  that  I  may  live  to  see 
it  finished.  But  I  am  lagging  beyond  my  time.  I 
looked  forward  to  having  a  few  kind  words  said  for 
me,  when  I  should  be  gone,  by  him  for  whom  I  have 
lived  to  write  a  requiem  such  as  it  was  given  me  to 
put  in  words,  inadequate,  but  not  falsely  colored. 

Perhaps  I  should  not  have  written  at  this  particular 
moment  had  I  not  found  on  my  table  your  Translation 
of  the  first  Part  of  the  Divine  Comedy.  You  must 
finish  your  work  without  his  eye  to  review  its  closing 
portions.  But  his  presence  will  be  with  you  still,  as 
in  some  degree  it  is  with  us  all  who  knew  and  loved 
him,  luminous,  benign,  helpful,  and  rich  in  thought 
and  learning  beyond  all  others  in  our  circle  of  know 
ledge.  I  sent  you  my  In  Memoriam  lines,  directed 
to  Ashfield,  where  I  hope  they  reached  you. 


MISCELLANEOUS   LETTERS  319 


Where  this  will  find  you,  in  a  geographical  point  of 
view,  I  do  not  know ;  but  I  know  your  heart  will  be  in 
its  right  place,  and  accept  kindly  the  few  barren  words 
this  sheet  holds  for  you.  Yes ;  barren  of  incident,  of 
news  of  all  sorts,  but  yet  having  a  certain  flavor  of 
Boston,  of  Cape  Ann,  and,  above  all,  of  dear  old  re 
membrances,  the  suggestion  of  any  one  of  which  is  as 
good  as  a  page  of  any  common  letter.  So,  whatever 
I  write  will  carry  the  fragrance  of  home  with  it,  and 
pay  you  for  the  three  minutes  it  costs  you  to  read  it. 
...  I  find  great  delight  in  talking  over  cathedrals 
and  pictures  and  English  scenery,  and  all  the  sights 
my  travelling  friends  have  been  looking  at,  with  Mrs. 
Bell.  It  seems  to  me  that  she  knew  them  all  before 
hand,  so  that  she  was  journeying  all  the  time  among 
reminiscences  which  were  hardly  distinguishable  from 
realities. 

My  recollections  are  to  those  of  other  people  around 
me  who  call  themselves  old  —  the  sexagenarians,  for 
instance  —  something  like  what  a  cellar  is  to  the 
ground-floor  of  a  house.  The  young  people  in  the 
upper  stories  (American  spelling,  story)  go  down  to 
the  basement  in  their  inquiries,  and  think  they  have 
got  to  the  bottom ;  but  I  go  down  another  flight  of 
steps,  and  find  myself  below  the  surface  of  the  earth, 
as  are  the  bodies  of  most  of  my  contemporaries.  As 
to  health,  I  am  doing  tolerably  well.  I  have  just 
come  in  from  a  moderate  walk  in  which  I  acquitted 
myself  creditably.  I  take  two-hour  drives  in  the  after- 

1  Mrs.  Fields  prints  this  in  her  article  in  The  Century  Maga 
zine,  February,  1895,  explaining  that  it  was  written  to  her  by 
the  Doctor  when  he  was  eighty-three  years  old. 


320  OLIVEK   WENDELL   HOLMES 

noon,  in  the  open  or  close  carriage,  according  to  the 
weather ;  but  I  do  not  pretend  to  do  much  visiting, 
and  I  avoid  all  excursions  when  people  go  to  have 
what  they  call  a  "  good  time." 

I  am  reading  right  and  left  —  whatever  turns  up, 
but  especially  re-reading  old  books.  Two  new  vol 
umes  of  Dr.  Johnson's  letters  have  furnished  me  part 
of  my  reading.  As  for  writing,  when  my  secretary 
comes  back,  I  shall  resume  my  dictation.  No  literary 
work  ever  seemed  to  me  easier  or  more  agreeable  than 
living  over  my  past  life,  and  putting  it  on  record  as 
well  as  I  could.  If  anybody  should  ever  care  to  write 
a  sketch  or  memoir  of  my  life,  these  notes  would  help 
him  mightily.  My  friends,  too,  might  enjoy  them,  — 
if  I  do  not  have  the  misfortune  to  outlive  them  all. 
With  affectionate  regards  and  all  sweet  messages  to 
Miss  Jewett. 

Always  your  friend, 

O.  W.  HOLMES. 


INDEX 


ABBOTT,  Holker  ;  letter  to,  about 
Pittsfield,  i.  197. 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  the  elder ; 
predictions  in  1861,  ii.  155. 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  the 
younger  ;  anecdote,  ii.  28. 

Adams,  John  ;  principal  of  Phil 
lips  Academy,  i.  28,  58. 

Adams,  John  Quincy  ;  i.  53. 

Adams,  Rev.  Nehemiah  ;  remarks 
on  his  religious  tenets,  ii.  224, 
253. 

Advertiser.  See  Boston  Daily  Ad 
vertiser. 

Agassiz,  Prof.  Louis ;  ii.  189  ;  jest 
about "  Liebig's Extract,"  i.  249; 
death,  ii.  51 ;  at  Humboldt  cel 
ebration,  184  ;  his  wife,  2J35. 

Agassiz,  Mrs.  Louis ;  ii.  205. 

Aldrich,  Thomas  B. ;  speech  at 
the  Atlantic  Breakfast,  i.  318. 

Alexander,  Emperor  of  Russia,  i. 
139. 

Alexis,  Grand  Duke  of  Russia  ; 
visit  to  Boston,  ii.  191. 

Amory,  William  ;  note  to,  i.  233  ; 
mentioned,  ii.  81,  205 ;  letter  to, 
about  poems  of  the  Rebellion, 
290. 

Anderson,  General  Robert ;  Dr. 
Holmes' s  remarks  about  him,  ii. 
176. 

Andral,  Gabriel ;  i.  91. 

Andrew,  John  A. ;  i.  326. 

Angell,  F.  A. ;  letter  to,  ii.  26. 

Angier,  Rev.  Joseph  ;  i.  77. 

Appleton,  Nathan ;  note  to,  i.  323. 

Appleton,  Thomas  G.;  i.  83,  94, 
104,  ii.  36,  185  ;  lines  in  his  al 
bum,  232;  note  to  him,  246; 


dedicates  book  to  Dr.  Holmes, 
322  ;  letter  to,  323  ;  Nile  Jour 
nal,  221. 

Arnold,  Sir  Edwin.  See  Light  of 
Asia. 

Arthur,  Chester  A. ;  i.  234. 

Ashmun,  J.  H. ;  i.  80. 

Atlantic  Breakfast ;  Mr.  Aldrich'a 
speech,  i.  318;  Mark  Twain's, 
ii.  22 ;  account  of,  43  ;  men 
tioned  in  letter  to  J.  R.  Lowell, 
123. 

"  Atlantic  Club ;  "  was  there  one  ? 
i.  241,  242. 

Atlantic  Monthly ;  founded  and 
named,  i.  204  ;  Dr.  Holmes's 
loyalty  to,  219;  he  solicits  J. 
R.  Lowell  to  contribute  to  it, 
221 ;  its  connection  with  "  At 
lantic  "  or  "Saturday"  Club, 
242  ;  its  career,  ii.  155,  156. 

Austen,  Jane  ;  i.  266. 

Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast-Table; 
quoted,  i.  192,  197,  203,  215, 
292 ;  ii.  5,  6,  8,  36,  40 ;  begun, 
205 ;  comments  on,  206  et  seq.  ; 
criticisms  on,  207;  condemned 
as  irreligious,  268. 

Ball's  Bluff;  engagement  of,  ii. 

157-159. 
Banks,  Nathaniel  P.;  predictions 

in  1861,  ii.  155  ;  and  later,  166  ; 

follows  Sumner,  194. 
Barker,  Dr.  Fordyce ;  notes  to,  i. 

247,  ii.  47, 82,  101. 
Barlow,  Joel,  i.  343. 
Barnes,  Phineas  ;  the  Doctor's 

friend  at   school,  i.  23 ;  letters 

to,  24,  52-75,  168,  193,  283. 


322 


INDEX 


Bartlett,  Francis ;  note  to,  i.  354. 

Barton, ;  quarrel  at  a  ball  in 

Paris,  i.  128. 

Bayard,  Thomas  F. ;  i.  308. 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward  ;  i.  38 ;  the 
"  Beecher-Tilton  scandal,"  ii. 
209,  210. 

"  Bell  of  St.Basil,  The ; "  letter  to 
Mrs.  Ward  about,  ii.  264. 

Bellows,  John ;  in  Gloucestershire 
Chronicle,  i.  4 ;  note  to,  about 
Over  the  Teacups,  ii.  69. 

Beverly  Farms  ;  summer  resi 
dence  at,  ii.  74,  75. 

Bigelow,  Dr.  Henry  J. ;  i.  185, 
307,  324,  ii.  25. 

Bigelow,  Dr.  Jacob ;  i.  83,  ii.  205, 
241. 

Bigelow,   George  T. ;     i.   77,  ii. 

Biglow  Papers;  reference  to,  ii. 
8  ;  letter  about,  112. 

Biglow,  William  ;  i.  33. 

Bishop,  John  ;  i.  6. 

Bishop,  Temperance  ;  i.  6. 

Bizot, ;  i.  151. 

Bohemian  Club  of  San  Francisco ; 
the  rhymed  telegram  to,  i.  249. 

Bonaparte,  Napoleon ;  i.  92,  109. 

Book-Buyer,  The ;  i.  335. 

Bordeaux,  Duke  of;  i.  111. 

Boston  Daily  Advertiser;  vexes 
the  Doctor  by  misprint,  ii.  124. 

Boston  Medical  Library  ;  Dr. 
Holmes's  presidency,  services, 
and  gift  of  books,  i.  184;  ad 
dress  at  opening  of,  quoted, 
ii.  7. 

Bowditch,  Dr.  Henry  I. ;  i.  126, 
151. 

Boyer,  Alexis  ;  i.  93. 

Boylston  prizes ;  taken  by  Dr. 
Holmes,  i.  161,  162. 

Bradstreet,  Ann  ;  i.  14. 

Bradstreet,  Mercy ;  i.  14. 

Bradstreet,  Simon ;  i.  14. 

Breschet, ;  i.  102. 

Bright,  John  ;  ii.  67,  159. 

Broek;  village  described,  i.  138, 
139. 

Brooks,  Henry  ;  book  about  great 
trees,  ii.  135,  137. 

Brooks,  Phillips ;  letter  to,  i.  280 ; 


mentioned,  ii.  121  ;   at  dinner 

to  Grand  Duke  Alexis,  192. 
"Broomstick  Train,"  the  poem; 

ii.  70. 

Broussais,  Fr.  Jos.  Victor;  i.  91. 
Brownell,  Henry  Howard ;  his  war 

lyrics,  ii.  291. 
Bruce,  Sir    Frederick;    ii.    174; 

about  China,  177. 
Bugeaud  da  la  Piconerie ;  duel,  i. 

128. 

Bunn,  Alfred  ;  i.  189. 
Burnett,  Waldo ;  i.  182. 
Burlingame,    Anson ;    concerning 

China,  ii.  177. 
Burns,  Robert ;   the  Doctor's  mot 

about,  i.  356. 

Burns  and  the  Kirk ;  i.  356. 
Burnside,   Gen.  Ambrose  E. ;  ii. 

171. 

Butler,  Benjamin  F. ;  ii.  132. 
Byron,  Lord ;  Mrs.  H.  B.  Stowe's 

article     in     Atlantic     Monthly 

charging    incest,   ii.    179,    183, 

209,  228. 

Cabot,  Dr.  Samuel ;  ii.  79. 

Calderon ;  remarks  about  his  ver 
sification,  ii.  277. 

Cambridge  (England)  University ; 
confers  degree  of  Doctor  of  Let 
ters  on  Dr.  Holmes,  ii.  66. 

Canoe  Meadow  ;  i.  197,  199,  201. 

Carlyle,  Thomas;  i.  2. 

Carpenter,  Dr. ;  i.  247. 

Cattle-show ;  letter  declining  invi 
tation  to,  ii.  114. 

Century  Dictionary  ;  Dr.  Holmes's 
pun,  ii.  28. 

"Chambered  Nautilus,  The;"  i. 
225-227,  ii.  239,  278. 

Charles  Street  house;  i.  195,  ii. 
190. 

Charles  X. ;  i.  111. 

Cheever,  Dr.  David  W. ;  his  arti 
cle  on  Dr.  Holmes  as  a  medical 
instructor,  quoted,  i.  174-177; 
Dr.  Holmes's  humanity,  180; 
concerning  the  Doctor's  love  of 
old  medical  books,  and  the  med 
ical  library,  184 ;  as  to  Dr. 
Holmes's  ideas  about  women- 
physicians,  185. 


INDEX 


323 


Clarke,  Prof.  Alonzo  ;  rattlesnake 
story,  ii.  237. 

Clarke,  Dr.  Edward  H.;  methods 
of  work,  ii.  13 ;  Dr.  Holmes's 
visits  to  him  in  his  illness,  216, 
240,  241. 

Clarke,  Rev.  James  Freeman,  D. 
D. ;  i.  63, 77,  ii.  83 ; "  humanizing 
theology,"  i.  271 ;  letter  to  him, 
wherein  Dr.  Holmes  declines  to 
take  part  in  some  association, 
305 ;  letter  to,  about  life  of 
Emerson,  ii.  59 ;  his  death,  71, 
72,  81 ;  writes  verses  to  Dr. 
Holmes,  which  the  Doctor  re 
quests  may  be  printed  as  his 
Envoi,  104 ;  letters  to,  269, 272, 
290,  309 ;  letter  to,  thanking  for 
volume  of  sermons,  288 ;  about 
Ten  Great  Religions,  etc.,  298. 

Class  of  '29  ;  i.  76-78,  ii.  137. 

Clemens,  S.  L.  ;  anecdote  of  his 
dedication  of  The  Innocents 
Abroad,  ii.  22. 

Clement,  ;  tutor  at  Phillips 

Academy,  i.  58. 

Cleveland,  Grover;  Dr.  Holmes 
writes  to  him  about  J.  R.  Low 
ell,  i.  308. 

Cloquet,  Jules ;  i.  128. 

"Coliseum,"  the,  at  Boston;  ii. 
179. 

Collegian,  The;  i.  68,  79,  237,  ii. 
82,  302. 

"  Contagiousness  of  Puerperal 
Fever ;  "  the  Doctor's  essay, 
i.  164-167,  225. 

Conway,  Moncure  D. ;  talk  about 
affairs  in  1862,  ii.  162,  163. 

Cranch,  Christopher  P. ;  ii.  316. 

Crocker,  F.  W. ;  i.  53. 

Crowninshield,  George ;  i.  117, 
118. 

Cunningham,  Dr.  George  ;  i.  337. 

Curtis,  George  William;  i.  260, 
ii.  51,  55,  76 ;  concerning  The 
Autocrat,  i.  206 ;  concerning  Dr. 
Holmes,  214,  ii.  32  ;  concerning 
the  Doctor's  colloquial  style, 
256. 

Curtis,  Benjamin  R.;  i.  63,  77. 

Dana,  Richard  H.,  senior ;  i.  15. 


Dana,  Richard  H.,  junior ;  ii.  177, 
220. 

Dartmouth  College  ;  appoints  Dr. 
Holmes  lecturer  on  anatomy,  i. 
161. 

Davis,  George  T. ;  i.  77. 

De*jazet,  Pauline  Virginie  ;  the  ac 
tress  ;  i.  88. 

Dental  Faculty  (and  School) ;  Dr. 
Holmes's  letters  about  their 
dinners,  i.  336-338. 

Despine,  Prosper ;  remarks  on  his 
book,  Psychologic  Naturelle,  ii. 
237. 

Devereux,  George  H. ;  class-ora 
tor,  1829,  i.  63. 

Dies  Irce, ;  remarks  on,  ii.  255. 
313. 

"  Dorothy  Q. ;  "  i.  14 ;  pendent  to, 
231. 

Dorr,  Mrs.  Julia  C.  R. ;  letters  to, 
on  death  of  her  husband,  i. 
286  ;  about  letter-writing,  321 ; 
thanks  for  a  plant,  355 ;  about 
Over  the  Teacups,  ii.  69,  70. 

Dudley,  Gov.  Thomas  ;  i.  14. 

Dulong, ;  duel,  i.  128. 

Dupuytren,  Baron  Guillaume  ;  i. 
92. 

Dwight,  Prof.  Thomas  ;  his  ar 
ticle  on  Dr.  Holmes  as  a  pro 
fessor,  quoted,  i.  174,  177-180, 
182;  concerning  Dr.  Holmes's 
feeling  about  dissection,  etc., 
180,  181;  concerning  Dr. 
Holmes's  position  on  the  ques 
tion  of  women  as  physicians, 
186  ;  note  to,  ii.  80. 

Dwight,  Timothy ;   i.  343. 

Edinburgh,  University  of ;  con 
fers  degree  of  LL.  D.  on  Dr. 
Holmes,  ii.  66. 

Edwards,  Prof.  Arthur  M.  ;  Dr. 
Holmes's  letter  to,  about  wo 
men-physicians,  i.  187. 

Edwards,  Jonathan;  i.  38,  269, 
271 ;  Dr.  Holmes's  article  on 
him,  ii.  11. 

Eliot,  Charles  W. ;  President  of 
Harvard  University,  i.  234,  239, 
338 ;  his  innovations  in  Univer 
sity  affairs,  ii.  187,  188,  190. 


324 


INDEX 


Elms :  the  Boston  Elm,  Johnston 

Elm,  Washington  Elm,  etc.,  ii.  5. 

Elsie  Venner;  quoted,  i.  197,  274, 

277,  289;    comments  on,   211, 
256-266;    published,  256;    at 
tempt  to  dramatize,  257 ;   real 
cases  similar  to  that  of  the  story, 
262  ;  a  "  medicated  novel,"  263 ; 
Dr.  Holmes  writes  to  Mrs.  Stowe 
about  it,  263  ;  regarded  as  irre 
ligious,     268,    274  ;     anecdote 
about  the  "  twenty-seventh  let 
ter,"  355,  356 ;  apropos  of  rat 
tlesnakes,  ii.  237. 

Emerson,  Ellen;  letter  to,  ii.  60, 

129. 
Emerson,   Ralph  Waldo;   i.  104, 

333,  341 ;   on  Montaigne,  213 ; 

and  the  Saturday   Club,   241 ; 

death,   ii.  51 ;  his   life  written 

by  Dr.  Holmes,  55-64,  132 ;  in 

his   declining   years,    122,    127, 

129  ;  his  fine  selection  of  words, 

188,  189. 

Evarts,  William  M. ;  ii.  51. 
Everett,  Edward  ;  verbal  criticism 

of  Dr.  Holmes's  poem,  ii.  18 ; 

anecdote,  ii.  130. 
Examiner  (London)  ;  praises  The 

Poet  at  the  Breakfast-Table,  i. 

254. 

Fable  for  Critics,  A;  letter  about, 

ii.  107. 
Farragut,  Admiral  David  S. ;  Dr. 

Holmes's  sketch  of,  ii.  176. 
Fay  House  ;  i.  50. 
Fechter,  Carl ;  ii.  186,  187. 
Fields,  Annie    (Mrs.   James  T.) ; 

article  in  Century  Magazine,  i. 

201 ;  letter  to,  ii.  319. 
Fields,   James  T. ;    the   Doctor's 

publisher,  friend,  and  neighbor, 

i.  219  ;  letters  to,  219,  220,  ii. 

278,  289,  294 ;  letters  to,  about 
some    poetical    effusions,    282 ; 
"  $100,"  284 ;  thanks  for  a  bar 
ometer,  285  ;  mistake  about  din 
ner-party,  286  ;    about   tavern 
at  Montreal,  292. 

Field,   Kate  ;     anecdote    of    Dr. 

Holmes,  i.  355. 
Flynt,  Henry ;  old-time  tutor  at 


Harvard    College  ;    his    silver 

cup,  ii.  50. 
Forbes,  John  M. ;  notes  to,  i.  244, 

355. 
Forster,  John  ;  Dr.  Holmes  meets 

him,  ii.  213. 

Foster,  Mrs.  Abby  Kelly  ;  i.  304. 
Fremont,  John  C. ;  ii.  167. 
Froude,  James    A. ;    lectures   in 

Boston,  ii.  198. 

Gaffield,  Thomas  ;  notes  to,  in  re 
sponse  to  invitations,  i.  325, 326. 
"  Gambrel-roofed    house  ;  "    the 

Doctor's  birthplace,  i.  21,   22, 

218. 
Gardiner,  Miss  S. ;    anecdote,   ii. 

239. 
Gardner,  George ;  i.  117,  118, 120, 

ii.  197. 
Garrison,   F.   J. ;  letter  of    Rev. 

Samuel    May    to,    about     Dr. 

Holmes's  class  poems,  i.  78. 
Garrison,  William  Lloyd,  i.  303. 
Gasparin,  Count ;  ii.  162,  166. 
Gettysburg;    the  Doctor  declines 

to  write  poem  for  celebration,  i. 

338. 
Gloucestershire  Chronicle ;   quoted, 

i.  4. 
Gosse,  Edmund;   quoted,  i.  247, 

251. 

Grant,  Sir  Robert ;  hymn,  ii.  244. 
Grant,  Gen.  U.  S;    the    Doctor's 

talk  with  him,  ii.  174-176 ;   C. 

Sumner's  hostility  to,  193. 
Gray,  Prof.  Asa ;  letter  to,  i.  347 ; 

letter  to  Mrs.  Gray,  ii.  4 ;  men 
tioned,  81. 

Gray,  John  C. ;  i.  83. 
Gray,  William;  ii.  161. 
Greenwood,  Rev.  Francis;  i.  281. 
"Grisette,  La;"  ii.  269,  271. 
Guardian  Angel,  The;  i.  211,  292, 

316 ;  published,  265,  266. 
Guiney,  Louise  Imogen ;  punning 

note  to  her,  ii.  27. 

Hale,  Rev.  Edward  Everett,  D.  D. ; 
letters  to,  as  to  contributions  to 
Old  and  New,  i.  328,  329. 

Hall,  Dr.  Marshall ;  i.  149,  276. 

Hallowell,  N.  P. ;  i.  63. 


INDEX 


325 


Harcourt,  Lady  Vernon;  letter  to, 
ii.  53. 

Harte,  Bret  ;  anecdote  of  Dr. 
Holmes's  advice  to,  i.  318. 

Harvard  Club;  story  of  the  son 
nets  written  for  its  dinner,  i. 
233-240. 

Harvard  University ;  appoints  Dr. 
Holmes  professor  of  anatomy,  i. 
173 ;  discussion  about  its  seal,  i. 
233-240 ;  confers  degree  of  LL. 
D.  on  Dr.  Holmes,  ii.  66.  Also 
see  Eliot,  Charles. 

Hayden,  Mrs.  H.  J. ;  lines  sent  to 
her  by  Dr.  Holmes,  i.  202. 

Hayne,  Paul  H. ;  letters  to,  i.  312, 
313,  329,  ii.  102. 

"  Heart  of  the  Golden  Roan ;  " 
poem  criticised,  i.  340. 

Hedge,  Rev.  Frederic  H.,  D.  D. ; 
letters  to,  ii.  79;  about  one  of 
his  books,  296. 

Hewet,  "  Grandmother ; "  i.  8-10. 

Hiawatha  ;  its  metre,  ii.  277. 

Higginson,  Col.  T.  Wentworth  > 
reminiscences  of  Abiel  Holmes, 
i.  15-17 ;  letter  to,  16 ;  a  popu 
lar  writer,  ii.  156 ;  remarks 
about  Dr.  Holmes's  talk,  248. 

Hillard,  George  S. ;  ii.  205. 

Hoar,  Ebenezer  Rockwood  ;  letter 
to  Dr.  Holmes  about  Life  of 
Emerson,  ii.  63. 

Hoar,  Richard ;  i.  4. 

Hoar,  Sheriff ;  i.  4. 

Hodge,  Professor ;  i.  164. 

Holmes,  Rev.  Abiel ;  the  Doctor's 
father;  i.  5-7,  97;  marriages, 
6;  extracts  from  his  diary,  8- 
12 ;  characteristics,  15 ;  engage 
ment,  16 ;  records  birth  of  son, 
20 ;  letter  to  son,  25  ;  Dr. 
Holmes's  reminiscences  of  him, 
37,  38 ;  at  the  South,  303. 

Holmes,  Mrs.  Abiel ;  the  Doctor's 
mother ;  i.  6,  15 ;  her  engage 
ment,  16 ;  her  education  of  her 
children,  37,  38 ;  her  dowry,  83  ; 
the  Doctor's  letters  to  her,  from 
Pittsfield,  i.  198,  ii.  280;  her 
death,  164;  anecdote  of  her, 
232. 

Holmes,  Amelia  J. ;  the  Doctor's 


daughter.  See  Sargent,  Mrs. 
Turner. 

Holmes,  Charles ;  an  English  ad 
miral,  i.  4,  134. 

Holmes,  David ;  ancestor  of  the 
Doctor,  i.  5-7. 

Holmes,  Edward  Jackson ;  son  of 
the  Doctor,  i.  172,  181;  refer> 
ences  to  his  death,  287,  ii.  71, 
78. 

Holmes,  Emra ;  letter  to,  i.  4. 

Holmes,  John  ;  the  Doctor's  bro 
ther  ;  i.  5,  127,  ii.  164 ;  his  re 
marks  about  the  Life  of  Emer 
son,  ii.  63. 

Holmes,  Lathrop ;  i.  8. 

Holmes,  Leonard ;  i.  8. 

Holmes,  Mary ;  i.  13. 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell;  his  re, 
marks  concerning  biographies, 
i.  1  ;  indifferent  to  his  geneal 
ogy,  3  ;  English  ancestors,  4  ; 
genealogical  notes  taken  at 
Woodstock,  6-8 ;  his  remarks  as 
to  his  maternal  ancestors,  12, 
13  ;  more  as  to  maternal  ances 
try,  14-17  ;  his  aristocratic  tend 
encies,  17,  19 ;  note  to  Mrs. 
KeUogg,  quoted,  18 ;  born,  19- 
21 ;  talks  of  his  birthplace,  21- 
23  ;  friendship  with  P.  Barnes, 
23  ;  schooling,  23-25  ;  youthful 
experiences  with  clergymen,  27, 
35,  38;  autobiographic  reminis 
cences,  28  et  seq. ;  reminiscences 
of  boyhood,  30-33  ;  of  school 
days,  33-37;  religious  and  lit 
erary  education,  37-47 ;  reading 
habits,  40;  remarks,  in  remi 
niscences,  concerning  planet 
Venus  and  the  Earth,  45  ;  first 
influences  in  direction  of  poetry, 
47-50 ;  his  own  description  of 
himself  in  college,  56 ;  class  poet, 
63 ;  does  not  take  degree  of 
A.  M.,  64 ;  writes  for  The  Col 
legian,  68,  79 ;  a  medical  student, 
70-75,  80-82  ;  enters  Harvard 
College,  76  ;  class  feeling,  and 
songs  for  his  class  meetings  after 
graduation,  77,  78 ;  as  a  law  stu 
dent,  78-81 ;  early  poetry,  — 
"  The  Spectre  Pig,"  ' '  Old  Iron- 


326 


INDEX 


sides,"  etc.,  79, 80 ;  Farewell  Ad 
dress  to  Medical  School,  quoted, 
80;  his  first  attack  of  7' lead- 
poisoning,"  81;  sails  for  Eu 
rope,  83 ;  a  few  days  in  England, 
after  arrival,  84;  quotations 
from  letters  from  Paris  and 
elsewhere,  84-90,  94,  97 ;  sketch 
of  his  life  in  Paris,  86-97 ;  of 
his  French  instructors,  90-94; 
travels  on  the  Continent,  and  in 
England  and  Scotland,  94,  95, 
130-139 ;  in  1835  goes  to  Italy, 
97,  152-156  ;  returns  home,  97, 
156  ;  group  of  letters  from*  Eu 
rope,  98-156;  describes  Palais 
Royal,  Louvre,  etc.,  98-100; 
describes  ways  of  life,  107,  109, 
114, 130, 146, 148-152 ;  describes 
advantages  of  study  in  Paris, 
108,  130  ;  after  great  delay  and 
trouble  he  gets  his  letters  from 
home,  114-116  ;  money  matters, 
122-124;  in  London,  132-136; 
description  of  sights  there, — 
Westminster  Abbey,  Mr.  Irving, 
the  Royal  Family,  etc.,  134-136 ; 
journey  by  rail  in  England,  140 ; 
from  England  back  to  Paris,  via 
Dover,  139-142  ;  arrives  in  New 
York,  156;  begins  to  practise 
medicine,  157 ;  measure  of  his 
success  as  a  practitioner,  157- 
161 ;  joins  Massachusetts  Medi 
cal  Society,  157  ;  publishes  his 
first  volume,  containing  *  B  K 
poem  and  lyrics,  160  ;  physician 
at  Massachusetts  General  Hos 
pital,  161 ;  appointed  lecturer 
on  Anatomy  at  Dartmouth  Col 
lege,  161 ;  wins  Boylston  prizes, 
161,  162  ;  his  volume  of  Medi- 
ical  Essays,  162 ;  hatred  of  ho 
meopathy,  162-164 ;  his  essay 
on  Contagiousness  of  Puerperal 
Fever,  164-167  ;  logical  habit  of 
mind,  166,  167 ;  marriage,  168, 
170 ;  letters  to  Phineas  Barnes, 
24,  52-75,  168,  193 ;  his  chil 
dren,  171, 172  ;  appointed  Park- 
man  Professor  of  Anatomy,  etc., 
in  Harvard  University,  173 ;  his 
remarks  concerning  office  of 


professor,  173, 174  ;  character 
istics  as  a  medical  instructor, 
174-183  ;  his  dislike  of  imper 
fect  knowledge,  183  ;  as  a  mi- 
croscopist,  183 ;  a  lover  of  old 
medical  books,  184 ;  his  gift  to 
the  medical  library,  184;  be 
friends  new  ideas  in  medical 
school  moderately,  185;  his  opin 
ion  as  to  women  as  medical  prac 
titioners,  185-187 ;  sundry  offices 
held  by  him,  188 ;  his  career  and 
labors  as  a  popular  lecturer, 
190-193  ;  his  various  residences : 
Montgomery  Place  and  Charles 
Street,  195,  Beacon  Street,  196 ; 
at  Pittsfield,  196-202 ;  engaged 
for  the  new  Atlantic  Monthly 
magazine,  and  names  it,  204 ; 
contributes  The  Autocrat  of  the 
Breakfast  -  Table,  205  ;  was  he 
provincial?  209-212;  his  lit 
erary  individuality,  212,  214  ; 
list  of  persons  to  whom  he  has 
been  compared,  212,  213;  his 
affection  for  Boston,  and  use  of 
the  place  in  his  writings,  214, 
215 ;  desire  to  travel  and  see 
more  of  the  world,  217,  218; 
contributions  to  International 
Review.  219  ;  faithful  adherence 
to  Atlantic  Monthly,  219 ;  rela 
tions  with  his  publishers,  219, 
221,  223;  with  Mr.  James  T. 
Fields,  219  ;  letters  to  Mr.  Fields 
as  to  writing,  219,  220  (and  see 
further  on) ;  his  business  ca 
pacity,  223  ;  his  poetry  after  the 
beginning  of  The  Autocrat,  225 
et  seq. ;  letter  in  which  he  com 
pares  his  interest  in  "  The  Cham 
bered  Nautilus  "  and  the  "  Essay 
on  Puerperal  Fever,"  225  ;  re 
marks  on  him  as  a  poet,  226- 
229  ;  as  a  "  singer,"  228  ;  as  a 
writer  of  "  occasional "  poetry, 
229-231  ;  his  pendent  to  "  Dor 
othy  Q.,"  231 ;  lines  in  Mr.  Ap- 
pleton's  album,  232  ;  would  not 
write  criticisms,  207 ;  sonnets 
and  correspondence  about  Har 
vard  University  seal,  233-240; 
readings  in  public  from  his 


INDEX 


327 


works,  240 ;  connection  with  the 
Saturday  Club  and  love  for  it, 
241-245  (see  Saturday  Club) ; 
his  table-talk,  245-252 ;  a  few 
of  his  sayings,  249, 250 ;  writes 
The  Professor  at  the  Breakfast- 
Table,  252;  The  Poet  at  the 
Breakfast-Table,  253-255 ;  com 
ments  on  sundry  symptoms  of 
the  times,  255 ;  publishes  Elsie 
Venner,  256 ;  objects  to  drama 
tization  of  it,  257  ;  corresponds 
with  Dr.  Weir  Mitchell  about 
snakes  and  their  venom,  259- 
262 ;  receives  from  him  a  pres 
ent  of  a  rattlesnake's  skin,  260 ; 
letter  to  Mrs.  Stowe  about  the 
motif  of  Elsie  Venner,  263; 
publishes  The  Guardian  Angel, 
265  ;  A  Mortal  Antipathy,  266 ; 
letter  to  Mr.  Ireland  about  the 
latter,  267 ;  his  relations  with 
religion  and  the  religious  world, 
267  ;  interest  in  theology,  268  ; 
his  humanity,  269 ;  "  American 
izing  religion,"  273  ;  the  making 
of  gods,  273 ;  duties  of  the  Cre 
ator,  274  ;  kindly  to  the  "  crip 
pled  souls,"  277;  sets  Science 
against  Free-will,  278 ;  never 
formulated  his  own  faith,  278, 
279 ;  repudiates  the  "  Deity  of 
ecclesiastical  commerce,"  279 ; 
a  church-goer,  280 ;  apropos  of 
this,  his  letter  to  Bishop  Phil 
lips  Brooks,  280  ;  would  like  to 
have  written  enduring  hymns, 
281 ;  remarks  about  ghosts  and 
psychology,  281 ;  about  the  or 
thodox  hell,  282 ;  his  letters  to 
persons  in  affliction:  to  P. 
Barnes,  283 ;  to  W.  R.  Sturte- 
vant,  284 ;  to  Mrs.  Dorr,  286 ; 
striking  letter  on  immortality  to 
John  Lindley,  288;  more  on 
same  topic,  289-291 ;  his  influ 
ence  in  bringing  about  tolera 
tion  of  varying  opinions,  292  ; 
letter  to  J.  R.  Lowell,  de 
fending  his  abstention  from 
"  causes,"  reforms,  etc.,  295,  and 
see  326  ;  attitude  towards  slav 
ery,  296,  300,303,  304  j  effect 


of  the  war  on  his  opinions,  305 ; 
but  he  continues  to  refuse  to 
join  associations,  apropos  of 
which  his  letter  to  Dr.  J.  F. 
Clarke,  305 ;  his  Fourth  of  July 
oration,  1863,  307  ;  efforts  with 
President  Cleveland  on  behalf 
of  James  Russell  Lowell,  308; 
feelings  towards  the  South  after 
the  war,  309-313  ;  apropos  of 
which  are  his  letters  to  Alex.  P. 
Morse,  310;  and  to  Paul  H. 
Hayne,  312, 313  ;  demands  upon 
his  time  by  correspondents  and 
others,  313  et  seq.  ;  conscientious 
accuracy  in  giving  advice  and 
praise,  316-319 ;  anecdote  about 
his  advice  to  Bret  Harte,  318  ; 
and  to  T.  B.  Aldrich,  318 ;  his 
liking  for  simple  language,  319 ; 
an  indifferent  writer  of  letters, 
319-321 ;  but  a  prolific  writer  of 
short  notes,  321 ;  specimens  of 
short  letters  and  notes,  of  re 
plies  to  requests,  etc.,  322-357  ; 
announces  birth  of  son,  322 ; 
recipe  for  the  contributor  of  a 
rejected  article  for  the  Atlantic, 
325 ;  refuses  to  appear  at  a 
public  meeting,  326;  describes 
composition  of  a  lyric  as  "  hav 
ing  a  fit,"  327;  to  Dr.  E.  E. 
Hale,  about  the  "  great  unwrit 
ten  article,"  328 ;  recommenda 
tions  to  editors,  329;  to  Mrs. 
Kellogg,  who  asked  him  to  take 
part  on  a  public  occasion,  330  ; 
to  Miss  Sherwood,  ditto,  331 ; 
about  the  "  Old  South,"  332  ; 
does  not  wish  reelection  as 
President  of  Alumni  Associa 
tion,  333  ;  notes  concerning  writ 
ings  sent  to  him  for  criticism, 
334,  339-344;  notes  about  the 
dinners  of  the  Dental  Faculty, 
or  Association,  336-338;  de 
clines  to  write  a  Gettysburg 
poem,  338 ;  opinion  about  edi 
torial  right  to  alter  contribu 
tor's  language,  340 ;  efforts  to 
get  the  use  of  his  name,  346 ; 
his  position  as  to  the  expulsion 
of  homoeopathists  from  Massa- 


328 


INDEX 


chusetts  Medical  Society,  349 ; 
note  of  thanks  for  Roman  wine 
glass,  351 ;  the  "  Portuguese 
grammar "  note,  351 ;  thanks 
for  the  ivory  scimetar  paper- 
cutter,  352 ;  note  explaining 
"  twenty-seventh  letter  "  in  El 
sie  Venner,  356 ;  sundry  jests 
aud  sayings,  356-358;  invents 
the  hand  stereoscope,  ii.  1 ;  note 
to  G.  A.  James  about  Charles 
Sumner  and  book-binding,  2 ; 
efforts  to  play  on  the  violin,  3  ; 
an  amateur  photographer,  3 ; 
passion  for  great  trees,  3-5  (see 
Brooks,  Henry)  ;  his  tree-sec 
tion,  showing  dates,  5 ;  a  lover 
of  books,  6 ;  his  remarks  about 
books,  6,  7  ;  his  taste  for  horses, 
7-9  ;  for  the  prize-fighters,  etc., 
9 ;  also  a  boating-man,  9,  10 ; 
always  a  hard  worker,  10 ;  his 
methods  and  characteristics  as 
a  writer,  10-17 ;  letters  to  Dr. 
Mitchell  on  this  subject,  12,  14; 
to  James  Freeman  Clarke  on 
same,  269-271 ;  his  literary  con 
servatism  and  purity  of  style, 
16;  letters  to  Richard  Grant 
White  on  certain  points  of  Eng 
lish,  17,  19  ;  another  letter  on 
the  like  matter,  20;  reluctant 
to  accept  suggestions  for  altera 
tion  of  what  he  had  written,  21 ; 
dread  of  plagiarism,  21 ;  but 
willing  to  repeat  himself,  21 ; 
his  well-prepared  manuscripts, 
22  ;  but  sometimes  he  suffers  by 
misprinting,  23,  124;  careful 
not  to  waste  his  good  thoughts, 
23 ;  his  puns,  24-28 ;  punning 
letters,  —  to  Dr.  Hunt,  24  ;  to 
Mr.  Angell,  26 ;  to  Miss  Guiney, 
27 ;  his  medical  training  as  in 
fluencing  his  literary  work,  28, 
29;  his  seriousness  and  con 
scientiousness  in  his  literary 
work,  29-32 ;  his  personality 
pervades  his  writings,  32,  33 ; 
egotism,  33-39  ;  flatterers,  34  ; 
not  often  severely  handled  by 
the  critics,  39-41 ;  letter  on  the 
subject,  40 ;  but  severely  han 


dled  by  The  Nation,  40,  223  ; 
growing  old,  42  et  seq.  ;  letters 
to  Howells  about  the  Atlantic 
Breakfast,  43, 123 ;  keeps  a  care 
ful  watch  on  himself,  45 ;  speaks 
of  his  own  cheerful  tempera 
ment,  46 ;  resigns  professorship 
in  Harvard  Medical  School,  47- 
51 ;  dinner  at  Delmonico's  in 
his  honor,  51 ;  remarks  on  death 
of  Longfellow,  51;  writes  life 
of  J.  L.  Motley,  52-54 ;  letters 
about  it  to  Lady  Harcourt,  53  ; 
and  to  John  O.  Sargent,  54; 
writes  the  life  of  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson,  55-64,  132;  receives 
letter  from  Judge  Hoar  about 
it,  63 ;  trip  (the  Hundred  Days) 
to  Europe,  65 ;  doctorates  con 
ferred  upon  him  by  the  univer 
sities  of  Harvard,  Cambridge 
(England),  Edinburgh,  and  Ox 
ford,  66-68 ;  his  remarks  about 
continuing  his  literary  work 
after  giving  up  his  professor 
ship,  68;  writes  Over  the  Tea 
cups,  69,  89 ;  and  "  The  Broom 
stick  Train,"  70  ;  loses  his  son, 
then  his  wife,  and  then  his 
daughter,  71 ;  letter  about  death 
of  his  wife,  261 ;  of  his  daughter, 
263  ;  concerning  death  of  James 
Freeman  Clarke,  71,  72  ;  threat 
ened  with  loss  of  eyesight,  73, 
74,  90 ;  his  summer  residence 
at  Beverly  Farms,  74  ;  his  birth 
day  celebrations,  75—77 ;  the 
"  correspondence  of  his  old  age," 
viz.,  letters  to  Whittier,  77,  82, 
87 ;  J.  R.  Lowell,  78 ;  Rev.  F. 
H.  Hedge,  D.  D.,  79;  Prof. 
Thomas  Dwight,  80;  John  O. 
Sargent,  80,  82 ;  Elizabeth  Stu 
art  Phelps  Ward,  84 ;  Mrs.  Car 
oline  L.  Kellogg,  86,  90 ;  Mrs. 
Priestley,  88;  Dr.  S.  Weir 
Mitchell,  89;  Charles  Dudley 
Warner,  91 ;  his  death,  92 ;  no 
tices  by  the  press,  92,  95 ;  by 
clergymen,  94 ;  by  the  English 
press,  95 ;  Punch's  lines,  96 ; 
extracts  from  the  French  press, 
97 ;  likenesses  of  him,  100 ;  his 


INDEX 


329 


own  remarks  about  his  personal 
appearance,  100-103 ;  Vanity 
Fair's  caricature  of  him,  303  ; 
his  letter  to  James  Freeman 
Clarke  about  the  Envoi,  104; 
group  of  letters  to  James  Rus 
sell  Lowell,  107-138;  about 
A  Fable  for  Critics,  107 ;  about 
The  Vision,  109;  about  The 
Biglow  Papers,  112 ;  declin 
ing  invitation  to  cattle-show, 
114;  he  is  chosen  president  of 
the  Phi  Beta  Kappa,  119,  123  ; 
his  life  at  Beverly  Farms,  131 ; 
teeth,  135 ;  group  of  letters  to 
James  William  Kimball,  on 
sundry  tenets  of  religion,  139- 
152  ;  group  of  letters  to  John 
Lothrop  Motley,  153-222  (re 
marks  on  the  war  and  public 
affairs,  passim,  through  these 
letters) ;  about  his  son's  wound, 
and  Ball's  Bluff,  157-159 ;  about 
relations  of  United  States  with 
England,  159 ;  remarks  on  death 
of  his  mother,  164  ;  remarks  on 
Grant,  Stanton,  Farragut,  and 
others,  174-177;  about  Mrs. 
Stowe's  article  charging  Lord 
Byron  with  incest,  179,  183, 
209,  228,  295  ;  about  the  "  Col 
iseum,"  179;  about  President 
Eliot  and  his  innovations  in 
Harvard  University,  187,  188, 
190 ;  political  predictions  in 
1872,  194,  195;  description  of 
the  "Great  Fire"  in  Boston, 
November,  1872,  196-198;  at 
Nahant,  200-202;  about  the 
Beecher  -  Tilton  scandal,  209, 
210 ;  about  the  manners  of  Eng 
lishmen,  212-214 ;  group  of  let 
ters  to  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe, 
223-255  ;  remarks  about  corre 
spondents,  236,  259;  article  on 
"Moral  Automatism,"  237; 
group  of  letters  to  Elizabeth 
Stuart  Phelps  Ward,  256-268; 
early  letter  to  James  Freeman 
Clarke  about  some  lyrics,  and 
about  his  methods  of  work, 
269 ;  to  same,  replying  to  re 
quest  for  some  verses,  272;  to 


same,  about  bores,  273 ;  to  same, 
thanking  for  The  Hour  which 
Cometh,  288 ;  to  same,  290 ;  to 
same,  about  Ten  Great  Eeli- 
gions,  298 ;  to  same,  309 ;  to 
George  Ticknor,  277  ;  to  James 
T.  Fields,  278;  to  his  mother 
(about  Pittsfield),  280;  to  Mr. 
Fields,  about  some  poetical  effu 
sions,  282  ;  to  Charles  Eliot  Nor 
ton,  about  visit  to  Newport,  283 ; 
to  same,  about  death  of  James 
RusseU  Lowell,  316;  to  Mr. 
Fields,  284,  289,  294 ;  to  same, 
thanking  for  a  barometer,  285  ; 
to  same,  about  mistaken  date 
for  dinner-party,  286  ;  to  same, 
about  tavern  at  Montreal,  292 ; 
to  William  Amory,  about  war- 
poems,  290 ;  to  Rev.  Frederic 
H.  Hedge,  D.  D.,  296  ;  to  Mrs. 
Kellogg,  299 ;  to  Bishop  Lee, 

300,  309;  to  John  O.  Sargent, 

301,  311,  312;  remarks  on  his 
friendship  with  Motley,  303  ;  to 
G.  A.  James,thanking  for  Sevres 
cup,  306 ;  to  J.  G.  Whittier,  303, 
305,  313,  315 ;  to  J.  C.  Traut- 
wine,  Jr.,  314 ;  to  Mrs.  James 
T.  Fields,  319. 

Holmes,  Mrs.,  the  Doctor's  wife 
(Amelia  Lee  Jackson) ;  de 
scended  from  Dorothy  Quincy 
("Dorothy  Q."),  i-  14;  mar 
riage,  170,  171 ;  mentioned  by 
him,  194,  198;  remarks  about 
his  letter- writing,  319 ;  her 
death,  ii.  71 ;  the  Doctor's  let 
ter  about  her  death,  261. 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  the 
younger ;  i.  5 ;  class  poet,  class 
of  1861,  Harvard  University, 
63 ;  wounded,  170,  311,  ii.  24, 
157  ;  his  career,  i.  171 ;  his  birth 
announced  by  his  father,  322  ; 
a  judge  of  Supreme  Court,  Mas 
sachusetts,  322;  comes  to  live 
with  his  father,  ii.  71,  263 ;  ill, 
in  the  army,  172 ;  visit  to  Eu 
rope,  introductions,  177. 

Holmes,  Mrs.  Oliver  Wendell ;  the 
younger,  ii.  71,  86,  263. 

Holmes,  Sir  Robert ;  i.  4,  5. 


330 


INDEX 


Holmes,  Temperance;  i.  9-11. 

Holmes,  Thomas ;  i.  4. 

Homceopathists ;  expelled  from 
Massachusetts  Medical  Society, 
348;  and  Dr.  Holmes's  letter 
thereon,  349. 

Homoeopathy ;  Dr.  Holmes's  rela 
tion  to,  i.  162-164. 

Homoeopathy  and  its  Kindred  De 
lusions  ;  i.  162-164,  350. 

Hooper,  Robert  W.;  i.  83,  87, 
104,  110,  117,  130,  142 ;  death, 
ii.  79. 

Horace ;  ii.  311 ;  compared  with 
Dr.  Holmes,  i.  230  ;  one  of  his 
odes  compared  with  Dies  Irce* 
ii.  312. 

Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co. ;  ii.  214 ; 
relations  with  Dr.  Holmes,  i. 
221-224. 

Houghton,  H.  O. ;  the  publisher  ; 
remarks  about  Dr.  Holmes's 
"copy,"ii.  22. 

Howe,  Mrs.  Julia  Ward ;  her  war- 
lyrics,  ii.  291. 

Howe,  Dr.  Samuel  G. ;  i.  144. 

Howe,  M.  A.  De  W.,  junior ;  let 
ter  to,  declining  request,  i.  335. 

Howells,  William  D. ;  ii.  182 ;  of 
Dr.  Holmes  and  The  Atlantic 
Monthly,  i.  205 ;  his  introduc 
tion  to  Dr.  Holmes,  358;  at 
the  Atlantic  Breakfast,  ii.  43; 
praised  by  Dr.  Holmes  in  1865, 

Hughes,  Thomas ;  i.  244. 
Humboldt    Celebration;    ii.    184, 

185. 
Hundred  Days  in  Europe ;  quoted, 

i.  90,  ii.  103  ;  written,  66. 
Hunt,  Dr.  William ;  letter  to,  ii. 

24. 

Hunt,  William  M. ;  ii.  211. 
Hutchinson,  Ellen  M. ;  ii.  135. 

Inches,  Herman ;  ii.  81. 

In  Memoriam  ;  its  metre,  ii.  277. 

Innocents  Abroad,  The;    anecdote 

about  dedication,  ii.  22. 
"Institute  of  1770;"  i.  306. 
Intermittent    Fever,    Essay    on; 

takes  prize,  i.  162,  168. 
International    Review,    The;    Dr. 


Holmes's    contributions    to,    i. 

219 ;    review  of  Light  of  Asia, 

ii.  257,  258. 
Ireland,    Alexander ;     letter    to, 

about   A  Mortal   Antipathy,  i. 

267;   letters  to,  about  life   of 

Emerson,  ii.  58,  62. 
Irving,  Rev.   Edward;   described 

by  Dr.  Holmes,  i.  134. 

Jackson,  Amelia  Lee,  wife  of 
Dr.  Holmes.  See  Holmes,  Mrs. 

Jackson,  Andrew  ;  i.  96. 

Jackson,  Judge  Charles ;  Dr. 
Holmes's  father-in-law,  i.  171. 

Jackson,  Edward ;  i.  14. 

Jackson,  Dr.  James,  senior ;  i.  82, 
168;  Dr.  Holmes's  esteem  for 
143. 

Jackson,  James,  junior ;  i.  98, 104, 
107,  110,  120,  123,  142,  143, 
151;  illness  and  death,  122, 
143. 

Jackson,  Dr.  John  B.  S. ;  i.  324. 

Jackson,  Jonathan;  i.  14. 

Jackson,  Mary ;  i.  14,  16. 

James,  George  Abbot;  note  to, 
thanking  for  Roman  wine-glass, 
i.  351;  note  to,  about  book 
binding  and  C.  Sumner,  ii.  2; 
note  to,  thanking  for  Sevres 
cup,  306. 

James,  Henry,  senior;  approves 
Mrs.  Stowe's  Byron  article,  ii. 
228. 

Johnson,  Samuel ;  chronological 
parallel,  i.  20. 

Kane,  Dr.  E.  K. ;  i.  189. 
Kellogg,  Caroline  L. ;  letters  to,  i. 

18,  195,  197,  201,  320,  322,  330, 

ii.  68, 86,  90. 
Kemble,  Charles  ;  i.  83. 
Kemble,  Fanny ;  i.  83. 
Kemper,  G.  W. ;  note  to,  i.  326. 
Kimball,  James  William  ;  i.  279 ; 

letter  to,  quoted,  281 ;  series  of 

letters  to,  on  religious  topics,  ii. 

139-152. 

King,  Rev.  Thomas  Starr ;  ii.  170. 
King's  Chapel ;    i.  280,  281 ;  Dr. 

Holmes's  funeral,  ii.  92. 
Kirkland,  John  Thornton;  i.  39. 


INDEX 


331 


Knapp,  ;   assistant  editor  of 

The  Liberator,  i.  303. 
Knights  of   the  Square  Table,  i. 

Lafayette,  George  Washington ;  i. 
128. 

Lafayette.  Marquis  de ;  i.  105. 

La  Marck,  General ;  i.  119,  128. 

Lancet,  The ;  article  about  Dr. 
Holmes,  quoted,  ii.  28,  30. 

Larrey,  Baron  Felix  Hippolyte ; 
i.  92. 

"Last  Leaf,  The;"  i.  227,  229; 
verbal  improvement  suggested, 
ii.  23 ;  French  translation  of,  98. 

Lee,  Col.  Henry ;  quoted,  ii.  29, 
35. 

Leland,  Charles  G. ;  ii.  125,  135. 

Leopold,  king  of  Belgium ;  i.  118. 

Liberator,  The ;  i.  303. 

Library  of  American  Literature; 
ii.  135. 

Light  of  Asia,  The;  reviewed  by 
Dr.  Holmes,  i.  207,  ii.  257- 

Lincoln,  Abraham;  fondness  for 
"The  Last  Leaf,"  i.  227;  M. 
D.  Conway's  opinion  of,  163. 

Lindley,  John;  letter  to,  on  im 
mortality,  i.  288. 

Lisfranc,  Jacques,  i.  92  (bis). 

Lodge,  Henry  Cabot ;  i.  219. 

Longfellow,  Henry  W. ;  i.  75 ;  ii. 
122,  128,  185,  189,  203 ;  death, 
and  Dr.  Holmes's  remarks,  ii.  51, 
52 ;  at  the  Saturday  Club,  193. 

Louis  Philippe ;  feeling  towards 
him  in  France,  i.  106,  111,  127. 

Louis,  Pierre  C.  A. ;  i.  86,  90,  91, 
107,  142,  143,  150;  his  motto, 
167. 

Louvre  ;  described,  i.  99. 

Lowell,  James  Russell ;  i.  320,  ii. 
66,  189,  192,  211;  concerning 
the  "Holmes  house,"  22;  let 
ter  from  Dr.  Holmes  to  him, 
63;  lectures,  189;  description 
of  a  lecture  tour,  191 ;  editor  of 
Atlantic  Monthly,  and  secures 
Dr.  Holmes  for  it,  204;  Dr. 
Holmes  urges  him  to  continue 
contributing  to  it,  221 ;  letter 
of  Dr.  Holmes  to  him  about  the 


Doctor's  "  occasional "  poetry, 
230;  public  readings  from  his 
works,  240 ;  letter  to  him  about 
Saturday  Club,  244;  his  talk, 
with  an  anecdote,  249  ;  his 
remarks  concerning  The  Pro 
fessor  at  the  Breakfast-Table, 
253;  letter  to  him,  in  which 
Dr.  Holmes  defends  himself 
against  Mr.  Lowell's  strictures, 
295  ;  Dr.  Holmes  seeks  to  have 
him  retained  as  minister  to 
England,  308;  with  the  auto 
graph-hunters,  315;  letter  to, 
at  request  of  a  young  lady, 
324 ;  letter,  with  contribution 
for  The  Atlantic,  and  recipe, 
325 ;  introduces  Howells  to  the 
Doctor,  358  ;  Dr.  Holmes  writes 
to  him  about  Life  of  Emerson, 
ii.  58;  as  to  Dr.  Holmes  in 
Europe,  65  ;  note  to,  about 
birthday,  76 ;  letters  to,  78, 102, 
107-138;  about  A  Fable  for 
Critics,  107 ;  about  The  Vision, 
109 ;  about  The  Biglow  Papers, 
112 ;  declining  invitation  to  cat 
tle-show,  114;  as  to  appoint 
ment  as  minister  to  England, 
125;  letter  to  Charles  Eliot 
Norton,  about  his  death,  316. 

Lowell,  John  A. ;  ii.  198. 

Lyman,  Daniel ;  i.  7. 

Lyman,  Eliphalet ;  i.  7. 

Lyon,  Jacob,  i.  6. 

Lyons,  Lord;  ii.  174. 

"Mark  Twain."  See  Clemens,  S.  L. 

Mars,  Mdlle. ;  the  actress,  i.  119, 
129. 

Massachusetts  General  Hospital,  i. 
161. 

Massachusetts  Historical  Society, 
ii.  51,  52,  57,  59,  72,  198. 

Massachusetts  Medical  Society  ; 
Holmes  joins  it,  157 ;  its  expul 
sion  of  the  homo30pathists,  348. 

Mather,  Cotton ;  i.  162. 

May,  Rev.  Samuel ;  i.  77,  ii.  36  ; 
letters  by  him  about  Dr. 
Holmes's  class  poems,  i.  77,  78 ; 
note  to  him  (on  slavery),  304; 
Dr.  Holmes's  letter  to  him 


332 


INDEX 


about  death  of  Rev.  James 
Freeman  Clarke,  ii.  71. 

McClellan,  George  B. ;  ii.  161, 
168. 

McKean,  Joseph;  i.  50. 

McLellan,  Isaac  ;  ii.  83,  316. 

Med.  Fac.  (a  College  society,  so- 
called)  ;  i.  52,  60. 

Medical  Essays :  the  volume, 
quoted,  i.  82,  91,  92 ;  remarks 
on,  162  et  seq. 

Medical  Library.  See  Boston 
Medical  Library. 

Medical  School;  Dr.  Holmes  ap 
pointed  professor  of  anatomy 
in,  i.  173 ;  farewell  address  to, 
quoted,  i.  80 ;  Dr.  Holmes's  res 
ignation  of  professorship,  47— 
51. 

Meigs,  Professor ;  i.  164. 

Meriam,  Dr.  H.  C. ;  i.  337. 

Mitchell,  Dr.  John  K. ;  ii.  49. 

Mitchell,  Dr.  S.  Weir;  ii.  49; 
letters  to,  90,  102 ;  correspond 
ence  with  Dr.  Holmes  about 
snakes  and  their  venom,  i.  259- 
262;  present  of  snake  skin  to 
Dr.  Holmes,  260,  261 ;  mot  as 
to  Dr.  Holmes's  letter-writing, 
321 ;  the  "  Portuguese  gram 
mar  "  note  to  him,  351 ;  note  of 
thanks  for  the  paper-cutter, 
also  the  riddle  thereon,  352; 
Dr.  Holmes's  letters  to  him 
about  his  own  methods  of  work, 
ii.  12,  14 ;  extracts  from  letters 
to,  47,  73. 

Mitford,  Mary  Russell ;  ii.  278. 

Montaigne ;  likeness  of  Dr. 
Holmes  to,  i.  213. 

Montgomery  Place ;  house  in,  i. 
195. 

"  Moral  Automatism  ; "  the  Doc 
tor's  article,  ii.  237. 

Morse,  Alexander  Porter  ;  i.  310. 

Morse,  Isaac  Edward;  i.  107, 110, 
311. 

Mortal  Antipathy ;  quoted,  i.  187  ; 
published,  266,  ii.  69 ;  letters  to 
Mr.  Ireland  about,  i.  267 ;  quoted 
as  to  Life  of  Emerson,  ii.  61. 

Motley,  John  Lothrop ;  i.  320 ;  ex 
tracts  from  Dr.  Holmes's  let 


ters  to,  12,  196,  217,  254,  338, 
ii.  46 ;  Dr.  Holmes's  life  of  him, 
i.  242,  ii.  52-54, 122 ;  praises  Dr. 
Holmes's  Fourth  of  July  ora 
tion,  i.  308 ;  death,  ii.  51 ;  spoken 
of,  with  J.  R.  Lowell,  121; 
group  of  Dr.  Holmes's  letters 
to  him,  153-222;  the  Doctor's 
letter  to  him,  after  death  of 
Mrs.  Motley,  214  (and  see,  also, 
219) ;  remarks  on  friendship 
with  him,  303. 

Nation,  The ;  criticises  Dr.  Holmes, 

ii.  40  ;  his  remarks  thereon,  223 ; 

reference  to,  295. 
Naushon,  invitation  to,  i.  355. 
Negro  plot,  the ;  i.  304. 
North  American  Review ;  i.  340. 
Norton,    Prof.  Charles    Eliot;   ii. 

122 ;   letter  to,  as  to  presidency 

of  Alumni  Association,  i.  333  ; 

note  to,  about  birthday,  ii.  76 ; 

letter  to,  about  Newport,  283; 

about  death  of  James  Russell 

Lowell,  316. 

Old  and  New,  the  magazine ;  i. 
328,  329. 

"  Old  Corner  Bookstore  ;  "  i.  219. 

"  Old  Ironsides  ;  "  the  lyric  of,  i. 
79. 

"  Old  South  ;  "  the  church  in  Bos 
ton,  i.  332. 

Oliver,  James  ;  i.  14. 

Oliver,  Sarah ;  i.  14. 

Osier,  Professor  William  ;  quoted, 
i.  164 ;  188. 

Over  the  Teacups;  i.  78,  314,  317; 
the  writing,  publication,  and 
reception  of,  ii.  69-71,  89. 

Oxford  University ;  makes  Dr. 
Holmes  D.  C.  L.,  ii.  66-68. 

Pages  from  an    Old    Volume    of 

Life;  i.  307. 

Palais  Royal  described,  i.  98. 
Pall     Mall     Gazette      (London); 

quoted,  as  to  dramatization  of 

Elsie  Venner,  i.  257. 
Palmerston,   Lord;    anecdote,    ii. 

130. 
Parker,  Theodore;    i.    189;   the 


INDEX 


333 


maternal  element  in    God,    ii. 

231. 

Parmelee,  Dr.  Eleazar ;  i.  338. 
Parsons,  Dr. ;  i.  102, 117, 125-127, 

133,  143,  145,  149,  ii.  5. 
Peabody,  Rev.  Ephraim ;  i.  281. 
Peabody,  George ;  his  celebration 

at  the  town  of  Peabody,  ii.  180. 
Peirce,  Professor  Benjamin ;  i.  77. 
Peter  "the  Great,"  of  Russia,  i. 

139. 
Phelps,    Elizabeth    Stuart.       See 

Ward,  E.  S.  P. 
Phillips,  Wendell ;  i.  189. 
Pilgrim's  Progress  ;  comments  on, 

i.  39,  42. 
Pittsfield ;  Dr.  Holmes's  residence 

there,    and    affection    for    the 

place,    i.    196-202,  300;    letter 

from  there,  about  daily  life,  ii. 

280. 
Poe,    Edgar  Allan;   fondness  for 

"  The  Last  Leaf,"  i.  227. 
Poet  at  the  Breakfast  -  Table ; 

quoted,  i.  316,  ii.  32,  37,  100  ; 

publication  of,  i.  253-255. 
Porcellian  Club  ;  i.  50,  297. 
Porter,  Dr.  C.  B. ;  his  anecdote  of 

Dr.  Holmes,  i.  357. 
Potter,  Dr.  William  H. ;  letter  to, 

declining-  invitation  to  dinner  of 

Harvard  Dental  Association,  i. 

336. 
Priestley,  Mrs. ;  letters  to,  about 

eyesight,  ii.  73,  74,  88. 
Professor  at  the  Breakfast-Table, 

quoted,   i.  166,   216,  248,  279, 

280,  292,  ii.  8,   19 ;  publication 

of,  i.  252,  253. 
Professor's  Story,  The.    See  Elsie 

Venner. 

Puerperal  Fever.    See  Contagious 
ness,  etc. 
Punch;   lines    on  death    of    Dr. 

Holmes,  ii.  96. 
Putnam,  Miss  Harriet ;  lines  sent 

to  her  by  Dr.  Holmes,  i.  202. 
Putnam's  Magazine ;  i.  204. 

Quarterly  Review;  article  in, 
quoted,  i.  304 ;  as  to  Holmes's 
conservatism  and  purity  in  his 
literary  style,  ii.  16. 


Quincy,  Dorothy;  i.  14;  ii.  50. 
See  "  Dorothy  Q." 

Quincy,  Edmund;  i.  300,  304,  ii. 
303. 

Quincy,  Josiah;  President  of  Har 
vard  University,  i.  53,  54. 

Radcliffe  College ;  i.  50. 
Rantoul,  Robert ;  i.  306. 
Read,  T.  Buchanan;  war-lyrics, 

ii.  291. 

Recorder;  i.  54. 
Reid,  Whitelaw ;  ii.  51. 
Ricord,  Philippe ;  i.  93. 
Robins,  Miss  Julia ;  anecdote,  and 

extract    from  letter  to  her,  i. 

218. 
"Rock  of  Ages;  "  comments  on 

the  hymn,  ii.  254. 
Rogers,  John ;  i.  47,  48. 
Ropes,  John  C. ;  letter  to,  about 

Gettysburg  poem,  i.  338. 
RusseU,  James;  i.  101,  104,  105, 

116. 

Sainte-Beuve ;  quoted,  i.  227 ;  re 
ferred  to,  253. 

Sargent,  Dr. ;  letter  to,  about 

an  apparently  fraudulent  occur 
rence,  i.  346. 

Sargent,  John  O. ;  edits  The  Col 
legian,  i.  79,  144 ;  letter  to  him 
from  Paris,  145 ;  letter  to,  from 
Pittsfield,  200 ;  letters  in  re  Har 
vard  Club  dinner  and  University 
Seal,  233-240;  letter  to,  about 
Life  of  Motley,  ii.  54 ;  letter  to, 
about  Life  of  Emerson,  57 ;  let 
ters  to,  80,  82,  301,  311,  312. 

Sargent,  Turner;  son-in-law  of 
Dr.  Holmes ;  i.  172. 

Sargent,  Mrs.  Turner,  the  Doc 
tor's  daughter;  goes  to  Europe 
with  her  father,  ii.  65;  living 
with  her  father,  262 ;  dies,  71 ; 
letter  as  to  her  death,  263. 

Saturday  Club,  The  ;  its  origin,  its 
membership,  and  Dr.  Holmes's 
love  for  it,  i.  241-245;  other 
important  references  to  it,  ii. 
38,  83,  155,  174,  188,  189,  193, 
211 ;  thinning  of  its  ranks,  51, 
122,  127,  130. 


INDEX 


Savage,  Edward;   his  portrait  of 

Rev.  Abiel  Holmes,  i.  15. 
Scott,  General  Winfield ;   ii.  168. 
Sentimental    Journey ;    references 

to,  i.  140. 

Seward,  William  H. ;  ii.  160. 
Shattuck,  Dr.  George  C. ;  note  to, 

about  medical  student,  i.  353. 
Sheaf  of  Papers;  T.  G.  Appleton's 

book,  dedicated  to  Dr.  Holmes, 

i.  322. 

Sherwood,  Miss  J. ;  letter  to,  de 
clining  request,  i.  331. 
Siclen,  George  W.  van ;  letters  to, 

i.  13. 
Siddons,  Mrs. ;  Doctor's  mot  about 

marrying,  i.  358. 
Simmons,  George   W. ;    note   and 

lines,  thanking  for  pears,  i.  353. 
Sinclair,   Mrs.   E.   S.;    letter    to, 

about  her  grandson's  poetry,  i. 

341 ;  note  to  her,  ii.  103. 
Slavery ;    Dr.   Holmes's    attitude 

towards,  i.  296,  300,  303,  304. 
Smith,  S.  F. ;  i.  77,  78. 
Songs  in   Many  Keys ;    anecdote 

about  dedication,  ii.  22. 
Spectator  (London) ;  quoted,  as  to 

The  Autocrat,  i.  209 ;  as  to  The 

Poet,  254;   as  to  the   Doctor's 

personality  in  his   writings,  ii. 

32. 

Stackpole,  J.  Lewis,  Jr. ;   ii.  194. 
Stackpole,  Mrs.  Lewis;  ii.  194. 
Stanley,  Dean ;  ii.  121. 
Stanton,  Edwin  M. ;  Dr.  Holmes's 

talk  with,  ii.  176. 
Stereoscope;    for   hand    use,    in 
vented  by  Dr.  Holmes,  ii.  1. 
Sterne,      Laurence  ;     Sentimental 

Journey  referred  to,  i.  140. 

Stewartson, ;  i.  107, 110, 123. 

Stiles,    Ezra;    President  of   Yale 

University  ;  i.  6,  37. 
Stiles,  Mary ;  i.  6. 
"Stone    Chapel."    See    "King's 

Chapel." 

Story,  Joseph ;  i.  80. 
Stow,  Rev.  Baron ;  anecdote,  ii.  18. 
Stowe,   Harriet  Beecher;   i.  279, 

320;     anecdote    of,    249;     Dr. 

Holmes's    letter  to  her   about 

Elsie  Venner,  263;   her  article 


charging  Lord  Byron  with  in 
cest,  ii.  179,  183,  295 ;  letter  to 
her  about  it,  228 ;  group  of 
letters  to  her,  223-255;  her 
"  charitable  opinion  "  about  Dr. 
Holmes,  299. 

St.  Paul's ;  Dr.  Holmes's  descrip 
tion  of  it  in  1834,  i.  136. 

Sturtevant,  W.  R. ;  letter  to,  on 
death  of  a  child,  i.  284. 

Sumner,  Charles ;  i.  296 ;  his 
screed  about  book-binding,  ii. 
2 ;  suggestion  to  public  readers, 
184;  attitude  towards  General 
Grant,  193  ;  political  prophecies 
in  1872,  194 ;  and  his  political 
associates,  194,  195 ;  his  chat, 
201,  202. 

Swain,  W. ;  "  Governor  "  of  Nau- 
shon,  i.  354. 

Sweetser,  Moses ;  letter  to,  reply 
ing  to  request  for  poetry,  i. 
327. 

Symonds,  John  Addington;  Life 
and  Letters  of,  quoted,  i.  282, 
291. 

Talma,  Frangois  Joseph,  the  ac 
tor  ;  i.  119,  129. 

Thackeray,  W.  M. ;  i.  77,  189,  ii. 
16, 113. 

Ticknor  &  Fields ;  i.  219. 

Ticknor,  George;  letter  to,  ii. 
277. 

Tilton,  Mrs.  D.  D. ;  i.  327. 

Trautwine,  J.  C.,  junior ;  letter  to, 
ii.  314. 

Trees;  Dr.  Holmes's  passion  for 
large,  ii.  3-5,  135, 137. 

Underwood,  Francis  H.  ;  i.  207 ; 
remarks  about  The  Saturday 
Club  and  The  Atlantic  Club, 
241 ;  memoir  of  Lowell,  ii.  103. 

Upham,  Ann  (Mrs.  Charles  W.) ; 
sister  of  Dr.  Holmes,  i.  6,  117, 
145  ;  letter  to,  from  Pittsfield, 
199;  her  granddaughter  Doro 
thy,  231 ;  letter  to,  322  ;  death, 
ii.  303. 

Upham,  Charles  W. ;  i.  6,  117, 
142,  143,  145 ;  letter  to,  161 ; 
telegram  to,  162. 


INDEX 


835 


Upham,  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes ; 
the  Doctor's  nephew,  i.  231. 

Vanity  Fair  (London) ;  publishes 
caricature  of  Dr.  Holmes,  ii. 
104. 

Velpeau ;  French  physician,  i.  93. 

Victoria,  Queen  ;  Dr.  Holmes  sees 
her  when  a  princess,  i.  135. 

Vision,  The  ;  letter  to  J.  R.  Low 
ell  about  it,  ii.  109. 

Walker,  Rev.  James,  D.  D.;  i. 
281,  ii.  81. 

Ward,  Elizabeth  Stuart  Phelps; 
letter  to,  ii.  84;  group  of  let 
ters  to  her,  256-268. 

Ware,  Henry,  D.  D. ;  i.  53,  59, 
60. 

Warner,  Charles  Dudley;  letter 
to,  about  Life  of  Emerson,  ii. 
60 ;  about  "  The  Broomstick 
Train,"  70;  birthday  letter  to, 
91. 

Warren,  Dr.  John  Collins;  letter 
to,  about  the  "  Old  South,"  i. 
332 ;  about  the  homceopathists, 
349. 

Warren,  Mason;  i.  104,  117,  130, 
142,  150. 

Warren,  Sullivan;  i.  87,  100,  110. 

Washington,  George  ;  the  eques 
trian  statue  of,  ii.  181. 

Welles,  Benjamin,  the  banker  ;  i. 
115,  142. 

Wendell,  Evert  Jansen;  i.  12,  13. 


Wendell,  Jacob ;  i.  14,  197. 

Wendell,  Oliver;  i.  6,  14. 

Wendell,  Sarah;  wife  of  Rev. 
Abiel  Holmes.  See  Holmes, 
Mrs.  Abiel. 

Westminster  Abbey ;  Dr.  Holmes's 
impressions  of,  in  1834,  i.  134. 

White,  Richard  Grant;  two  let 
ters  to  him  on  points  of  Eng 
lish,  ii.  17,  19. 

Whittier,  John  Greenleaf  4,  remark 
on  "  The  Chambered  Nautilus," 
i.  225;  on  the  "occasional" 
poems  of  Dr.  Holmes,  229  ;  let 
ters  to  him,  ii.  77,  82,  87,  303, 
305,  307,  313,  315;  seventieth 
birthday,  117,  118. 

Wigglesworth,  Michael ;  ii.  247. 

Wilks,  Dr.  Samuel;  letter  to,  ii. 
37. 

William  TV. ;  described  by  Dr. 
Holmes,  i.  135. 

Willson,  Forceythe ;  war-lyrics,  ii. 
291. 

Wilson,  Mrs.  Helen  Hopekirk ; 
note  to  her  quoted,  i.  320. 

Winslow,  William  C. ;  note  to, 
about  excavations  at  Zoan,  i. 
354. 

Winthrop,  Hon.  Robert  C.,  ii.  192, 
198. 

Wyman,  Dr.  Morrill ;  i.  16. 

Yankee,  The  ;  i.  53,  54,  60. 
Zoan,  excavations  at ;  i.  353. 


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LD  21A-40m-ll,'63 
(E1602slO)476B 


:  ».i 


